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BEIJING (Reuters) - Hu Jia, a well-known Chinese dissident who lives in Beijing, says he had hoped to go to the southeastern city of Xiamen for his government-sponsored holiday, but state security officials said no. They told me I had to go to a more isolated place this time, he told Reuters by phone from Yunnan province in far southwestern China, a popular destination renowned for its scenery and the culture of its ethnic minority groups. Rights groups say that Hu is one dozens of activists and dissidents detained, placed under tighter monitoring or vacationed by authorities, during the week-long congress of the ruling Communist Party which began on Wednesday in Beijing. President Xi Jinping is expected to tighten his grip on power at the gathering, which is only held once every five years. For his enforced holiday, Hu and his two government minders jointly decided on the destinations. Hu suggested the ancient town of Dali in Yunnan for the first stop, and the public security agents accompanying him chose the second and third stops in the southwest region, Guiyang the capital of the mountainous province of Guizhou, and the coastal city of Beihai in Guangxi province. Hu estimated the whole trip for the three of them will cost close to 10,000 yuan ($1,510), all paid for by the authorities. He said that his minders tried to save money by choosing basic hotels and traveling between the three cities by bus. He will fly back to Beijing on Oct 28, just after the congress ends. You can go see the sights, but state security goes with you everywhere, Hu said. Reuters was unable to independently verify the accounts of Hu and other dissidents interviewed for this story. China s public security ministry did not respond to a faxed request for comment on the detention of activists, and the use of vacations. China rarely explains its treatment of dissidents other than to say that those charged are criminals who harmed social stability and that all people in China are treated equally before the law. It is not unusual for Chinese authorities to heighten monitoring and detention of dissidents before important political events, especially people with high profiles who are known to speak out against the party and state. In addition to the enforced vacations, some activists have also been detained, placed under supervision at home, or warned about posting critical messages online in the weeks ahead of congress, according to the Hong Kong-based group Chinese Human Rights Defenders. The group also said it had documented 14 cases of detention of activists in recent weeks. In one case, Wu Kemu, a truck driver from Xuancheng city in the central province of Anhui, was called in by the police for a talk on October 11 and has not been released since, his wife Fang Liangxiang told Reuters by phone on Sunday. They will not say when he will be released. They just told me to wait at home for him, she said, adding that she expected the detention was related to critical things Wu had said about the government on the popular instant messaging platform WeChat. No one answered the phone on Saturday at the Xuancheng city detention center where Fang says Wu is being held. It is unclear if the total number of detentions, arrests or vacations this year is greater than at the time of previous major events or how many of the cases are directly related to the congress. Some activists say that the authorities prefer enforced vacations rather than detentions as they can make dissidents both inactive and inaccessible to foreign journalists over sensitive periods. Locking people up can attract more attention. Hu, a pro-democracy activist and campaigner for those with HIV/AIDS, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail for subversion in 2008, and said he has been under regular state surveillance since his release. The first thing I did was go for a run up in the mountains by Dali, because I knew the state security agents could not run with me, he said, adding that the agents were not the running type. It felt like being briefly free from prison, he said. Hu said that state security agents had shown him a list of people who would not be allowed to stay in Beijing over the 19th Party Congress, including Liu Xia, the widow of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo. Liu Xia has been under effective house arrest in Beijing since her husband won the Nobel Prize in 2010. After his death in July, even the sporadic communications she s had with friends have been nearly entirely severed, two of them told Reuters. The public security ministry did not respond to a request for comment on Liu Xia s situation. Some activists make their own travel plans to avoid the authorities. Wu Lihong, an activist from Wuxi city in Jiangsu province who for over a decade has been protesting pollution in Lake Tai in eastern China, told Reuters that Chinese state security had called him last week saying they were coming to take him for a forced vacation. Wu, though, had already gone to visit a friend in Zhejiang province, on the east coast and far away from Beijing, to avoid them. At the 16th, 17th and 18th Congresses I was vacationed, imprisoned, held at home and forbidden to speak, Wu said. This time, I chose to go on holiday without them, he said. He said that state security officials had asked him to return to Wuxi so they could take him on vacation themselves, but he declined saying he would stay with his friend till after the congress ends. He is now avoiding their calls. Reuters could not independently confirm Wu s comments. Chinese state security does not have a public phone number, fax number or website. Xi has overseen a sweeping crackdown on rights lawyers and activists since coming to power in 2012, jailing dozens, in what rights groups say is a coordinated attempt to quash dissent in China. New internet measures include rules that hold users accountable for critical posts even in private group chats and a renewed crackdown on technologies to circumvent restrictions. Kit Chan, director of the Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, said that some recent detentions of activists represent a new direction in the crackdown as it shows the authorities are targeting smaller groups that draw attention to specific rights issues as much as their traditional focus on pro-democracy activists. Zhen Jianghua, for example, the founder of Human Rights Campaign in China, a grassroots organization based in the southern province of Guangzhou, was detained on Sept 1 in Zhuhai, a source close to Zhen who declined to be named told Reuters. The ministry of public security did not respond to a faxed request for comment about the targeting of grassroots organizations. A person who answered the phone at the Zhuhai public security bureau said she was not aware of Zhen s case.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge blocked the deportation on Saturday of dozens of travelers and refugees from seven Muslim-majority nations, stranded at U.S. airports under an order from President Donald Trump, after a lawsuit filed on behalf of two Iraqis with ties to U.S. security forces. In the lawsuit filed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, the two men challenged Trump’s directive on constitutional grounds. The suit said their connections to U.S. forces made them targets in their home country and that the pair had valid visas to enter the United States. The lawsuit highlights some of the legal obstacles facing Trump’s new administration as it tries to carry out the directive, which the president signed late on Friday to impose a four-month ban on refugees entering the United States and a 90-day hold on travelers from Syria, Iran and five other Muslim-majority countries. In an emergency ruling on Saturday, U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly ordered U.S. authorities to refrain from deporting previously approved refugees as well as “approved holders of valid immigrant and non-immigrant visas and other individuals ... legally authorized to enter the United States” from the countries targeted in Trump’s order. The American Civil Liberties Union, which sought the temporary stay, said it would help about 100 to 200 people who found themselves detained in transit or at U.S. airports after Trump signed the order. “I am directing the government to stop removal if there is someone right now in danger of being removed,” Donnelly said in the court hearing. “No one is to be removed in this class.” U.S. Department of Justice attorney Susan Riley during the hearing said, “This has unfolded with such speed that we haven’t had an opportunity to address all the legal issues.” Many of the people in a huge crowd that had gathered outside the Brooklyn courthouse broke out into cheers after word of the judge’s ruling filtered out. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security in a statement hours later said only a small fraction of airline passengers arriving in the United States on Saturday were “inconvenienced while enhanced security measures were implemented.” “These individuals went through enhanced security screenings and are being processed for entry to the United States, consistent with our immigration laws and judicial orders,” the statement said. The department said Trump’s executive order remained in place and that its officers would enforce it. Separately, a group of state attorneys general were discussing whether to file their own court challenge against Trump’s order, officials in three states told Reuters. The plight of one of the men who brought the lawsuit, a former U.S. Army interpreter who was detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport, is especially compelling, said David Leopold, a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, who is not involved in the suit. “Here is a guy who was a translator who worked for the U.S. military for years, who himself was targeted by terrorists,” he said. “It is clear that if he is sent back, he is facing a direct threat to his life.” That man, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, was released later on Saturday and told a crowd of reporters at JFK Airport that he did not have ill feelings about his detention. “America is the greatest nation, the greatest people in the world,” he said. Darweesh, 53, worked for the U.S. Army and for a U.S. contractor in Iraq from 2003 to 2013 as an interpreter and engineer, the lawsuit said. The second plaintiff, Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, 33, was also detained at JFK Airport but has since been released. He is the husband of an Iraqi woman who worked for a U.S. contractor in Iraq. She already lives in Houston, the suit said. Trump, a Republican, has said his order would help protect Americans from terrorist attacks. The lawsuit on behalf of the Iraqis challenges Trump’s order on several grounds. It says the order violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of due process by taking away their ability to apply for asylum, and violates the guarantee of equal protection by discriminating against them on the basis of their country of origin without sufficient justification. It also says the order violates procedural requirements of federal rulemaking. The next hearing in the case was set for Feb. 10. Supporters of the order say the president has wide authority to limit the entry of foreign nationals from specific countries when it is in the national interest. “Even if they do and they win, my answer is so what?” said Mark Krikorian, the director of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies. “We are talking a few dozen people – that is just a last-ditch effort to get the last few people in. It doesn’t really change the policy,” he said. Trump’s order does not mention specific religions but Trump said in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network on Friday he was acting to help Christians in Syria who were “horribly treated.” Comments like that could come back to haunt the president in litigation over his order, said Hiroshi Motomura, an immigration expert at UCLA School of Law. “There were comments during the campaign that focused very much on religion as the target,” Motomura said. “If the record showed that the origins of a particular measure were based on targeting a particular group, that could be challenged in court.”

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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday that there was no alternative to a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians and that Jerusalem was a final-status issue that should be resolved through direct talks. I have consistently spoken out against any unilateral measures that would jeopardize the prospect of peace for Israelis and Palestinians, Guterres said after U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. In this moment of great anxiety, I want to make it clear: There is no alternative to the two-state solution. There is no Plan B, he told reporters. I will do everything in my power to support the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to return to meaningful negotiations.

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MOSCOW (Reuters) - North Korea is preparing to test a long-range missile which it believes can reach the west coast of the United States, a Russian lawmaker just returned from a visit to Pyongyang was quoted as saying on Friday. Anton Morozov, a member of the Russian lower house of parliament s international affairs committee, and two other Russian lawmakers visited Pyongyang on Oct. 2-6, Russia s RIA news agency reported. They are preparing for new tests of a long-range missile. They even gave us mathematical calculations that they believe prove that their missile can hit the west coast of the United States, RIA quoted Morozov as saying. As far as we understand, they intend to launch one more long-range missile in the near future. And in general, their mood is rather belligerent. Tensions have risen in recent weeks over North Korea s nuclear weapons and missile programs as Pyongyang has test-fired several missiles and conducted what it said was a test explosion of a hydrogen bomb as it advances toward its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland. Morozov s comments drove up the price of U.S. Treasury bonds, as investors, worried about the prospect of new North Korean missile tests, moved into assets the market views as a safe haven in times of uncertainty. Reuters was not able to independently verify Morozov s account, and he did not specify which North Korean officials had given him the information about the planned test. In Washington, a U.S. official said that there had been indications that North Korea could be preparing for a missile test on or around Oct. 10, the anniversary of the founding of the ruling Korean Workers Party and a day after the Columbus Day holiday in the United States. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not disclose the type of missile that could be tested and cautioned that North Korea in the past has not staged launches despite indications that it would. A senior CIA analyst, speaking at a conference in Washington this week, said the North Korean government likely would stage some kind of provocation on Oct. 10 but did not elaborate on what form it might take. There is a clarity of purpose in what (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Un is doing. I don t think he s done, said Yong Suk Lee, the deputy assistant director of the CIA s Korea Mission Center, which was set up this year. In fact, I told my own staff (that) October 10th is the Korean Workers Party founding day. That s Tuesday in North Korea, but Monday the Columbus Day holiday - in the United States. So stand by your phones. Morozov s delegation had high-level meetings in Pyongyang, RIA news agency said, citing the Russian embassy in the North Korean capital. Tensions over North Korea s nuclear program have been running high in recent weeks since Pyongyang staged a series of missile tests, and conducted a text explosion on Sept. 3 of what it said was a hydrogen bomb. There has also been an exchange of tough rhetoric between Pyongyang and Washington. U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to totally destroy North Korea if it threatens the United States. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un responded by calling Trump deranged and saying he would pay dearly for his threat. China, North Korea s main ally, has backed sanctions against Pyongyang and on Saturday in response to the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said it backed a worldwide ban on nuclear weapons. China has always supported a complete and total ban on nuclear weapons, but also believes that the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament cannot be achieved overnight and must advance gradually within the existing disarmament mechanism. China is willing to work with all parties to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world, said China s foreign ministry. Morozov is a member of the LDPR, a right-wing populist party. It casts itself as an opposition party, but hews close to the Kremlin line on matters of international affairs. Describing meetings with North Korean officials, Morozov said they displayed serious determination and bellicose rhetoric, RIA reported. The situation, of course, demands the swiftest intervention of all interested states, particularly those represented in the region, in order to prevent wide-scale military action, the agency quoted him as saying. Russia has closer relations with Pyongyang than many other world powers, linked in part to Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea and the current leader s grand-father, having lived for a time in the Soviet Union. Russian President Vladimir Putin has joined other world powers in condemning North Korea s weapons program, but has taken a softer line than Western governments. Putin has said that Pyongyang will not be cowed into giving up its weapons program. He has accused Washington of trying to effect regime change in North Korea, and predicted that would unleash chaos. U.S. Treasury prices surged on the report of a possible new missile test, pulling yields lower, as investors cut risk out of their portfolios and sought the safety of Treasuries. Treasury prices move inversely to their yields. Benchmark 10 year U.S. Treasury yields fell from the session high 2.40 percent mark US10YT=TWEB to 2.35 percent around midday (1600 GMT) in New York. It has just been risk-off buying into the long (Columbus Day) weekend ... You look at the charts, it has really been a one-way trade of lower yields, said Justin Lederer, Treasury analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald in New York.

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(Reuters) - Hurricane Irma knocked out power to nearly 4 million homes and businesses in Florida on Sunday, threatening millions more as it crept up the state s west coast, and full restoration of service could take weeks, local electric utilities said. Irma hit Florida on Sunday morning as a dangerous Category 4 storm, the second highest level on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, but by afternoon as it barreled up the west coast, it weakened to a Category 2 with maximum sustained winds of 110 miles per hour (177 kph). So far, the brunt of the storm has affected Florida Power & Light s customers in the states southern and eastern sections, and its own operations were not immune, either. We are not subject to any special treatment from Hurricane Irma. We just experienced a power outage at our command center. We do have backup generation, FPL spokesman Rob Gould said on Sunday. FPL, the biggest power company in Florida, said more than 3.2 million of its customers were without power by 10 p.m. (0200 GMT Monday), mostly in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. More than 200,000 had electricity restored, mostly by automated devices. The company s system will need to be rebuilt, particularly in the western part of the state, Gould said. That restoration process will be measured in weeks, not days. FPL is a unit of Florida energy company NextEra Energy Inc. Large utilities that serve other parts of the state, including units of Duke Energy Corp, Southern Co and Emera Inc, were seeing their outage figures grow as the storm pushed north. Duke s outages soared to 390,000 from 60,000 in a span of four hours on Sunday evening, and the company warned its 1.8 million customers in northern and central Florida that outages could ultimately exceed 1 million. The company updated its website on Sunday evening with a warning to customers that outages may last a week or longer. Emera s Tampa Electric utility said the storm could affect up to 500,000 of the 730,000 homes and businesses it serves, and over 180,000 had already lost power. The utilities had thousands of workers, some from as far away as California, ready to help restore power once Irma s high winds pass their service areas. About 17,000 were assisting FPL, nearly 8,000 at Duke and more than 1,300 at Emera. Tampa Electric told customers on Sunday, however, that response crews were halting work because of the high winds. FPL said on Friday that Irma could affect about 4.1 million customers, but that was before the storm track shifted away from the eastern side of the state. Its customers are concentrated in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. The utility said its two nuclear plants were safe. It shut only one of the two reactors at its Turkey Point nuclear plant about 30 miles (48 km) south of Miami on Saturday, rather than both, because the storm shifted. It plans to leave both reactors in service at the St. Lucie plant about 120 miles (193 km )north of Miami because hurricane-force winds are no longer expected to hit the sites. There is also spent nuclear fuel at Duke s Crystal River plant, about 90 miles (145 km) north of Tampa. The plant, on Irma s current forecast track, stopped operating in 2009 and was retired in 2013. In a worst-case scenario, the spent fuel could release radiation if exposed to the air, but a federal nuclear official said that was extremely unlikely. That fuel is so cold, relatively speaking, it would take weeks before there would be any concern, said Scott Burnell of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. As the storm has come ashore, gasoline stations have struggled to keep up. In the Atlanta metro area, about 496 stations, or 12.2 percent, were out of gasoline, according to information service Gas Buddy.

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(Reuters) - A Colorado lawmaker is trying to outlaw marijuana-laced gummy candies that resemble children’s treats, the latest effort by a U.S. state to address the complexities and unintended consequences of pot legalization. In 2014 Colorado became the first state to allow the sale of marijuana for recreational use, and it has grown to be a billion dollar industry in the state. The measure by State Representative Dan Pabon, a Democrat from Denver, would prohibit edible marijuana to be sold in the form of an animal, human or fruit, common shapes for gummy candies favored by young children. “Right now in Colorado, there are no distinguishing characteristics between the gummy bear that contains marijuana and one that does not,” Palon said. The appeal of edible marijuana products to children has become a concern in the few U.S. states that have legalized pot in recent years. In Washington state, where legal pot has been on sale for about 18 months, regulators recently tightened the rules on edible products made with cannabis, said Rick Garza, director of the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis board. The new restrictions outlawed brightly colored marijuana lollipops and other sweets deemed to be particularly attractive to children, Gar said. Numerous children in Colorado were hospitalized after becoming critically ill as a result of ingesting edible marijuana products after pot became legal there in 2014, and lawmakers have already moved once to toughen the rules. But Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper has urged the legislature to do more, saying in his State of the State address in January that pot-laced edibles look too much like “products kids can find in the candy aisle.” “Back in the day, candy cigarettes desensitized kids to the dangers of tobacco - and today, pot-infused gummy bears send the wrong message to our kids about marijuana,” Hickenlooper said. Pabon’s bill, submitted on Thursday, directs the state’s marijuana regulatory agency to develop more detailed guidelines on how enforcing the ban on marijuana candies shaped like humans, animals or fruit would work. Voters in four U.S. states and the District of Columbia approved ballot measures to legalize marijuana for recreational use by adults in recent years. Numerous others allow medicinal use. Advocates have pushed for similar referendums in a half-dozen other states, including California, Massachusetts and Maine. In Maine, a proposed legalization referendum advanced on Friday when a judge overruled a state official’s decision invalidating some of the signatures needed to get the initiative on the ballot.

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MADRID (Reuters) - Catalan police declared a false alarm on Tuesday following a bomb scare that had led agents to cordon off Barcelona s Sagrada Familia church and send in a bomb squad to check a parked van. Police said on Twitter that there had been no arrests as a result of the incident and that the area had returned to normal.

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ROME/PALERMO (Reuters) - The death of Sicilian Mafia boss Salvatore Toto Riina on Friday does not mark the end of Cosa Nostra, but the crime group is unlikely to allow one man such power ever again, a top magistrate and former mobster said. The 87-year-old Riina died in a hospital in Parma, the northern Italian city where he had been serving 26 life sentences for murders committed between 1969 and 1992. The end of Riina isn t the end of Cosa Nostra, the chief magistrate in Sicily s capital of Palermo, Francesco Lo Voi, told Reuters. What remains to be understood is whether the men of Cosa Nostra will seek a direct successor or a new organizational structure, Lo Voi said. Gaspare Mutolo, who admits to having strangled some 20 people, agrees. Mutolo, now 77, turned state s witness in the early 1990s at the age of 51, and became a key witness in dozens of mafia cases. He shared a jail cell with Riina in the 1960s, and became his trusted bodyguard and driver afterward. Mutolo, who still wears a balaclava to hide his identity from cameras, felt pity when he heard his former friend and cell mate had died, he said. He was a friend. He helped me. He even saved my life. I saw him a little bit as a father figure, Mutolo told foreign reporters in Rome. Riina s death changes little in Sicily, he said: Palermo still has the mafia. BACK-ROOM DEALS As several recent cases show, the mob still extorts business owners on the island, and it still seeks to win lucrative public contracts through back-room deals with corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. I can t imagine politics without the mafia, Mutolo said. But the future of Cosa Nostra without Riina, whose brutality undermined the trustworthiness of the organization by driving mafiosi like Mutolo into the hands of the state, is uncertain. The Calabrian mob, known as the Ndrangheta, has had few turncoats and has taken over drug routes once dominated by Cosa Nostra. The Calabrians now are major importers of cocaine from South America to Europe and to North America. Even politicians are wary of doing deals with the Sicilian mob now, Mutolo said. Cosa Nostra is not the same as it was in the 1980s mainly because of the turncoats, Mutolo said. The Calabresi have taken over because they are more trusted. Cosa Nostra has always had a military-like structure, but before Riina there was no single boss of bosses . Power was divvied up by territory, and the local bosses met together in a so-called Commission to discuss strategy and settle disputes. But Riina made himself the dictator of Cosa Nostra. It s not a given that Cosa Nostra will see a charismatic leader as a necessity in the future, Lo Voi said, returning to a decentralization of operations and decision making as there was before Riina took over.

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IKOM, Nigeria (Reuters) - When soldiers burst into her village in southwest Cameroon last month with guns blazing, small farmer Eta Quinta, 32, raced into the forest with three of her children. I found a canoe and I used it to cross over with my kids, not knowing where my husband and my (other) two kids are, she told Reuters across the border in Nigeria, where thousands of English-speaking Cameroonians have fled in past weeks. What began last year as peaceful protests by Anglophone activists against perceived marginalisation by Cameroon s Francophone-dominated elite has become the gravest challenge yet to President Paul Biya, who is expected to seek to renew his 35-years in power in an election next year. Government repression - including ordering thousands of villagers in the Anglophone southwest to leave their homes - has driven support for a once-fringe secessionist movement, stoking a lethal cycle of violence. The secessionists declared an independent state called Ambazonia on Oct. 1. Since then, 7,500 people have fled to Nigeria, including 2,300 who fled in a single day on Dec. 4 fearing government reprisals after raids by separatists militants killed at least six soldiers and police officers. The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR is preparing for up to 40,000 refugees. Quinta and her children walked for three days through the dense forests to reach a border crossing at the Agbokim Waterfalls. They remain without news of the rest of the family. There are many pregnant women in the forest, Quinta said as she held her sick two-month-old baby whose head was covered by a white wooly hat. I have friends in the forest and am not sure if I will get to see them again or their kids. At the end of World War One, Germany s colony of Kamerun was carved up between allied French and British victors, laying down the basis for a language split that still persists. English speakers make up less than a fifth of the population of Cameroon, concentrated in former British territory near the Nigerian border that was joined to the French-speaking Republic of Cameroon the year after its independence in 1960. French speakers have dominated the country s politics since. Cameroonian authorities say the English-speaking separatists pose a security threat that justifies their crackdown. The new arrivals in Nigeria live mainly with host families who have supported them with food, clothing and shelter. The integration, a UNHCR official said, was made easier by the pidgin English spoken on either side of the border. Food and medicine are in limited supply. Four people have died of sicknesses since coming to Nigeria and the refugees sometimes sleep as many as 50 to a five-by-seven meter room. Their anger has grown toward a government they feel no longer represents them, which could provide the separatists with easy recruits. We were walking for peaceful demonstrations ... but it s because of the killing of our innocent people that is why our own people have started reacting, said Tiku Michael, a businessman, farmer, father of six and now a refugee. Even ... God himself, he will not allow things to go (on) like that.

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HANOI (Reuters) - A top U.S. envoy began a two-day trip to Vietnam on Monday to gauge its progress in human rights, two weeks ahead of a visit by President Barack Obama in what will be the first by a U.S. leader in a decade. Tom Malinowski, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, is expected to press Vietnam to release unconditionally political prisoners and reform its laws to comply with its international commitments. Relations between the United States and Vietnam have moved to a new level in the past two years as Washington seeks to make a new ally in Asia, but the communist nation’s zero-tolerance approach to its detractors remains a sticking point. Vietnam has jailed dissidents, bloggers and religious figures in recent years, holding them for long periods without access to family or legal counsel and often subject to torture or other mistreatment, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch. The United States has been intensifying efforts in building stronger ties - in health, education, environment, energy and recently military - to boost its influence, and offset that of China. The United States and Vietnam, along with 10 others, this year signed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), one of the world’s biggest multinational trade deals. Though the TPP has no requirements for members to reach certain standards in human rights, analysts say Vietnam’s record of arrests, intimidation and oppression of those who speak out against the ruling Communist Party could add to anticipated resistance to the pact among U.S. legislators. The TPP must be ratified by each member country’s parliament. Malinowski said during his visit to Vietnam last year that he had seen signs of progress on human rights but the country needed to make a stronger commitment. Rights groups, however, say those improvements might be short-lived and designed to ensure its smooth accession to multilateral trade agreements, including a pact with the European Union.

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WASHINGTON/HOUSTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army will grant the final permit for the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline after an order from President Donald Trump to expedite the project despite opposition from Native American tribes and climate activists. In a court filing on Tuesday, the Army said that it would allow the final section of the line to tunnel under North Dakota’s Lake Oahe, part of the Missouri River system. This could enable the $3.8 billion pipeline to begin operation as soon as June. Energy Transfer Partners (ETP.N) is building the 1,170-mile (1,885 km) line to help move crude from the shale oilfields of North Dakota to Illinois en route to the Gulf of Mexico, where many U.S. refineries are located. Protests against the project last year drew drew thousands of people to the North Dakota plains including Native American tribes and environmental activists, and protest camps sprung up. The movement attracted high-profile political and celebrity supporters. The permit was the last bureaucratic hurdle to the pipeline’s completion, and Tuesday’s decision drew praise from supporters of the project and outrage from activists, including promises of a legal challenge from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. “It’s great to see this new administration following through on their promises and letting projects go forward to the benefit of American consumers and workers,” said John Stoody, spokesman for the Association of Oil Pipe Lines. The Standing Rock Sioux, which contends the pipeline would desecrate sacred sites and potentially pollute its water source, vowed to shut pipeline operations down if construction is completed, without elaborating how it would do so. The tribe called on its supporters to protest in Washington on March 10 rather than return to North Dakota. “As Native peoples, we have been knocked down again, but we will get back up,” the tribe said in the statement. “We will rise above the greed and corruption that has plagued our peoples since first contact. We call on the Native Nations of the United States to stand together, unite and fight back.” Former President Barack Obama’s administration last year delayed completion of the pipeline pending a review of tribal concerns and in December ordered an environmental study. Less than two weeks after Trump ordered a review of the permit request, the Army said in a filing in District Court in Washington D.C. it would cancel that study. The final permit, known as an easement, could come in as little as a day, according to the filing. There was no need for the environmental study as there was already enough information on the potential impact of the pipeline to grant the permit, Robert Speer, acting secretary of the U.S. Army, said in a statement. Trump issued an order on Jan. 24 to expedite both the Dakota Access Pipeline and to revive another controversial multibillion dollar oil artery: Keystone XL. Obama’s administration blocked that project in 2015. At the Dakota Access construction site, law enforcement and protesters clashed violently on several occasions throughout the fall. More than 600 people were arrested, and police were criticized for using water cannons in 25-degree Fahrenheit (minus 4-degree Celsius) weather against activists in late November. “The granting of an easement, without any environmental review or tribal consultation, is not the end of this fight,” said Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, one of the primary groups protesting the line. “It is the new beginning. Expect mass resistance far beyond what Trump has seen so far.” Any legal challenge is likely to be a difficult one for pipeline opponents as presidential authority to grant such permits is generally accepted in the courts. The tribe said in a statement the decision “wrongfully terminated” environmental study of the project. Deborah Sivas, professor of environmental law at Stanford and director of Stanford’s Environmental Law Clinic, said a challenge by the tribe would likely rely on the reasons the Army Corps itself gave for why more review was needed in December. “The tribe will probably argue that an abrupt reversal without a sufficient explanation for why the additional analysis is not necessary is arbitrary and should, therefore, be set aside,” she said in an email. Supporters say the pipeline is safer than rail or trucks to transport the oil. Shares of Energy Transfer Partners finished up 20 cents at $39.20, reversing earlier losses on the news.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan bill introduced on Thursday would prohibit members of the U.S. Congress from ever working as lobbyists after they leave the Senate or House of Representatives. Republican Senator Cory Gardner with Democratic Senators Michael Bennet and Al Franken in introducing the Senate legislation to stop the lucrative “revolving door” practice that has drawn the ire of watchdog groups for decades. “By banning members of Congress from lobbying when they leave Capitol Hill, we can begin to restore confidence in our national politics,” Gardner said in a statement. Similar legislation has failed in the past. Currently, there are only temporary restrictions on former members of Congress becoming lobbyists. The Center for Responsive Politics has noted that former members often score large-salaried lobbying jobs, sometimes of $1 million or more. The non-partisan group found that just over 51 percent of former members of the 113th Congress (2013-2014) became lobbyists. Besides a lifetime ban on lobbying for current members of Congress, the legislation would require former congressional aides to wait six years instead of one year before engaging in lobbying and require better reporting of lobbying activities.

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BERLIN (Reuters) - Half a year ago, the political stars seemed perfectly aligned for a deep reform of the European Union and its euro currency. Emmanuel Macron had won the French presidency on a promise to relaunch Europe. And Angela Merkel, on track to win a fourth term as German chancellor, looked ready to embrace his bold vision, telling an audience in Bavaria that it was time for Europe to take its fate into its own hands. Following the collapse of German coalition talks, however, the prospects for a meaningful leap forward in European cooperation, driven by newly minted governments in Berlin and Paris, look dimmer than ever. Political uncertainty has crossed the Rhine, said Jean Pisani-Ferry, an economist and academic who helped write Macron s election program. Europe has gotten used to having a strong German government with clear positions. That is something we may not have for some time. Germany now faces months of political limbo which will narrow an already tight window for agreeing reforms of euro zone governance and EU defense and asylum policies. Should Germany be forced to hold new elections, its partners may have to wait until next summer for a government to take form. By then, Europe will be entering crunch time in its Brexit negotiations with Britain, preparing for sensitive discussions on a long-term EU budget and gearing up for the election of a new European Parliament. Euro zone leaders were due to begin a six-month discussion on closer integration of their 19-nation currency bloc next month at a special summit in Brussels. Now that debate seems likely to be delayed and officials say the chances of reaching any conclusions by June 2018, as proposed by European Council President Donald Tusk, are slim. Things will go on hold until there is a formal acting German government, one euro zone official said. At this stage I don t see what steps the leaders could take in December or June for deepening euro zone integration when there is a German government without a mandate. Another casualty could be the completion of an EU pact on closer defense cooperation, known as PESCO. Berlin and Paris had hoped to sign it into law at a regular EU summit next month. Now diplomats involved in EU foreign policy say that may be overly ambitious. Germany has also been a driving force behind EU efforts to reform its asylum policies in the wake of the 2015 refugee crisis. Those discussions, pitting countries like Italy and Greece against Poland and Hungary, were already bogged down. Without a new government in Berlin, there is next to no hope of a breakthrough. We have so many things we need to do urgently that slowing us down is not good for Europe as a whole, Frans Timmermans, a former Dutch foreign minister who is deputy head of the European Commission, told CNN. He played down the risks, however, saying: It might slow us down a little bit but I don t think it would take Europe off course, whatever happens. Perhaps the only pressing issue which will not be significantly affected by the political uncertainty in Germany is Brexit, where there is a broad political consensus among German parties. That means that Merkel, who will remain in place in a caretaker capacity until a new coalition is formed, should have sufficient room to maneuver in talks that, in any case, are being led by the European Commission and its chief negotiator Michel Barnier. Still, hopes that the two political earthquakes of 2016 Britain s decision to leave the EU and the election of U.S. President Donald Trump might shock European capitals into bold reforms, once elections in the Netherlands, France, Germany and Austria were out of the way, are fading. Even before the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) walked out of coalition negotiations with Merkel s conservatives and the Greens in the early hours of Monday, doubts were rising about whether she would have the flexibility to meet Macron halfway as head of an awkward three-way Jamaica alliance. Now that those talks have collapsed, she would appear to have three options: convince the Social Democrats (SPD) to enter another right-left grand coalition ; form a minority government with the Greens or the FDP; or take the risk of new elections. So far the SPD leadership has shown no signs that it will go back on its pledge to go into opposition. On Monday, Merkel appeared to rule out a minority government. So unless something changes, a new election could be the only way forward. That would probably not take place before March or April, around the same time that Italy is due to hold elections which could also result in a hung parliament. Crucially, polls suggest that a new German election would not give Merkel more coalition options than she had coming out of the Sept. 24 vote. Indeed, if voters blamed her conservatives for failing to form a government the first time around, she could emerge even weaker than she is now. That would be a further blow to German political stability and to Macron s European ambitions.

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SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean hackers stole a large amount of classified military documents, including South Korea-U.S. wartime operational plans to wipe out the North Korean leadership, a South Korean ruling party lawmaker said on Wednesday. Democratic Party representative Rhee Cheol-hee said 235 gigabytes of military documents were taken from the Defense Integrated Data Center in September last year, citing information from unidentified South Korean defense officials. An investigative team inside the defense ministry announced in May the hack had been carried out by North Korea, but did not disclose what kind of information had been taken. Pyongyang has denied responsibility in its state media for the cyber attacks, criticizing Seoul for fabricating claims about online attacks. Separately on Wednesday, cyber security firm FireEye said in a statement North Korea-affiliated agents were detected attempting to phish U.S. electric companies through emails sent in mid-September, although those attempts did not lead to a disruption in the power supply. It did not specify when the attempts had been detected or clarify which companies had been affected. Rhee, currently a member of the National Assembly s committee for national defense, said about 80 percent of the hacked data had not yet been identified, but that none of the information was expected to have compromised the South Korean military because it was not top classified intelligence. Some of the hacked data addressed how to identify movements of members of the North Korean leadership, how to seal off their hiding locations, and attack from the air before eliminating them. Rhee said the North could not have taken the entire operation plans from the database because they had not been uploaded in full. These plans had likely not been classified properly but defense ministry officials told Rhee the hacked documents were not of top importance, he said. Whatever the North Koreans took, we just need to fix the plans, Rhee later told Reuters by telephone. I disclosed this because the military hasn t been doing that fast enough. Rhee said on radio the hack had been made possible by a simple mistake after a connector jack linking the military s intranet to the internet had not been eliminated after maintenance work had been done on the system. The South Korean Defense Ministry s official stance is that they cannot confirm anything the lawmaker said about the hacked content due to the sensitivity of the matter. In Washington, the Pentagon said it was aware of the media reports but would not comment on the potential breach. Although I will not comment on intelligence matters or specific incidents related to cyber intrusion, I can assure you that we are confident in the security of our operations plans and our ability to deal with any threat from North Korea, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Robert Manning told reporters. FireEye said the phishing attack on the electric companies detected was early-stage reconnaissance and did not indicate North Korea was about to stage an imminent, disruptive cyber attack. The North has been suspected of carrying out similar cyber attacks on South Korean electric utilities, in addition to other government and financial institutions. Those attempts were likely aimed at creating a means of deterring potential war or sowing disorder during a time of armed conflict , FireEye said. North Korea linked hackers are among the most prolific nation-state threats, targeting not only the U.S. and South Korea but the global financial system and nations worldwide, its statement said. Their motivations vary from economic enrichment to traditional espionage to sabotage, but all share the hallmark of an ascendant cyber power willing to violate international norms with little regard for potential blowback, it said.

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MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Monday it was worried that proposed new U.S. sanctions against Moscow could hurt major investment projects with European partners, but said it was premature to say if and how it would retaliate. The White House said on Sunday that U.S. President Donald Trump was open to signing legislation toughening sanctions on Russia after Senate and House leaders reached agreement on a bill late last week. That has raised concerns in Germany which has already threatened to retaliate against the United States if the new sanctions end up penalising German firms, such as those involved with building Nord Stream 2, a project to build a pipeline carrying Russian gas across the Baltic. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call Moscow was worried that U.S. sanctions could hit third countries, as well as Russia, hard. “We are working with our European partners on implementing a number of large-scale projects,” said Peskov, when asked about the possible impact of the new U.S. sanctions on projects like Nord Stream 2. “It goes without saying that we and our European partners attach great importance to finishing these projects and we will work towards this,” he said. “That is why discussions about ‘sanctions themes’ — which could potentially obstruct these projects — are a cause of concern for us.” Peskov said the Kremlin took “an extremely negative view” of the proposed new sanctions, calling the rhetoric surrounding them counter-productive and damaging to U.S.-Russia ties. But he said Moscow was for now ready to wait and see what the final shape of the sanctions might be. “As for the Washington administration’s stance on sanctions, we have seen some corrections to it,” said Peskov. “We will wait patiently ... until this position has been formulated unambiguously.” Separately, Peskov declined to comment on reports that the European Union might discuss new sanctions against Moscow over its delivery of Siemens turbines to sanctioned Crimea. Reuters on Monday quoted two diplomatic sources in Brussels as saying that Germany was urging the European Union to add up to four more Russian nationals and companies to the bloc’s sanctions blacklist over Siemens gas turbines delivered to Moscow-annexed Crimea.

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BELFAST (Reuters) - Northern Ireland s main political parties are to continue talks aimed at restoring the British region s devolved government on Wednesday, a British government official said, in an apparent extension of a deadline for a deal. Representatives of Irish nationalists Sinn Fein and the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) ended their second day of talks aimed at re-establishing a power-sharing government that collapsed in January, the official said. The British government has indicated that if the parties fail to reach agreement in the coming days it will be forced to impose a budget directly for the first time in a decade to ensure essential services are funded. A budget set by the British government would be a major step towards direct rule from London, which could destabilize a delicate political balance there. On Monday the British government s minister for Northern Ireland, James Brokenshire, said if there was no progress by the end of talks on Tuesday he would assess whether London needed to move impose a budget. The spokesman declined to comment when asked when that decision would be made. The DUP and Sinn Fein have shared power for the past decade in a system created following a 1998 peace deal that ended three decades of violence in the province. Sinn Fein pulled out in January, complaining it was not being treated as an equal partner.

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BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany s Social Democrats (SPD) faced pressure on Wednesday to consider offering coalition talks to Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives to settle the worst political crisis in modern German history. A leader of the smaller Free Democrats (FDP) also raised the possibility of reviving coalition talks with the conservatives and Greens that collapsed at the weekend raising fears across Europe of stalemate in the EU s economic and political powerhouse. But the party chief later appeared to ruled it out. The signs of possible flexibility came after President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in a move unprecedented for a largely ceremonial position, intervened to promote talks that could avert a disruptive early repeat election. SPD leader Martin Schulz, whose party had governed in coalition under Merkel since 2013, wants to go into opposition after September polls that knocked its support to the lowest levels since formation of the modern German republic in 1949. But the mass-circulation Bild newspaper said 30 members of the SPD s 153-strong parliamentary group questioned that position this week at a meeting of the parliamentary party. SPD lawmaker Johannes Kahrs, spokesman for the Seeheimer Circle, a conservative wing in the party, urged Schulz to keep an open mind when he meets on Thursday with Steinmeier. Kahrs told the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper that the collapse of the coalition talks had changed the situation. We cannot just tell the German president, Sorry, that s it. Bild said German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who handed leadership of the SPD to Schulz and became foreign minister earlier this year, also favors a resumed grand coalition. Germany, traditionally a bastion of stability in the EU, could face months of political stagnation, further complicating agreement on reforms of euro zone governance and EU defense and asylum policies. Merkel, who remains acting chancellor until a government is agreed, has said she would prefer to work with the SPD. If that failed, she would favor new elections over an unstable minority government. Merkel s 12-year hold on power was shaken at the September elections partly by the arrival of the anti-immigration AfD party in parliament. Guenther Oettinger, an EU commissioner and member of Merkel s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), urged the SPD to think again about its rejection of coalition talks. The long process of forming a government is weakening Germany s influence in Brussels, Oettinger told Der Spiegel newsmagazine in an interview to be published on Thursday. Axel Schaefer, deputy head of the SPD s parliamentary group, urged the three political blocs to try again to reach agreement. But he said his party would also talk with conservatives if asked to do so by Steinmeier, who is meeting with possible coalition partners this week. A top official of the pro-business FDP told broadcaster ntv her party would not rule out reviving the three-way coalition talks if Merkel s conservatives and the Greens offered a completely new package of proposals. If it really was possible to build a modern republic in the coming years, then we are the last ones who would refuse to talk, FDP Secretary General Nicola Beer said. But FDP chief Christian Lindner told Spiegel magazine: For the foreseeable future, it is impossible to imagine cooperation with the Greens at the federal level. Stephan Weil, the SPD premier of Lower Saxony who just completed a coalition agreement with conservatives in his state, has said a new election could leave few options other than a grand coalition anyway, the Sueddeutsche newspaper reported. Joe Kaeser, chief executive of Siemens, told Die Welt newspaper that he hoped new elections could be avoided since the results would likely be little changed from Sept. 24. A new poll released Wednesday showed that half of Germans favor a new election, while a fifth support a minority government. Only 18 percent want a renewal of the SPD-conservative coalition that ruled the past four years.

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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Within minutes of Donald Trump saying he would visit Mexico, one of the front-runners to become the country’s next president hit back, saying the brash White House hopeful would not be welcome. That was just a start. Scorn rained down on both Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and the U.S. Republican presidential nominee after the two announced late on Tuesday they would meet during a brief trip by Trump to the country he has repeatedly attacked during his presidential campaign. Before it even took place, the visit was a public relations disaster for Pena Nieto as politicians and diplomats condemned him for inviting a man who has united Mexican like few others in shared disdain. Since launching his White House bid in June last year, Trump has vowed to seal off the country behind a border wall he says Mexico will pay for, tarred its migrants as rapists and drug pushers and threatened to expel millions of them, as well as saying he will revise or tear up a trade deal with Mexico if he wins office in November. Mexican cabinet ministers have called Trump ignorant and racist, and Pena Nieto earlier this year likened Trump’s tilt for the top job to the rise of Adolf Hitler, so the sudden invitation to the real estate mogul was a hard sell to the public. “Mr Trump may have been invited but he knows he’s not welcome,” presidential hopeful Margarita Zavala, wife of former president Felipe Calderon and one of the favorites to succeed Pena Nieto at the next election in 2018, said on Twitter. “Mexicans have dignity and we reject his hate speech,” she added. A few dozen people gathered beneath a soaring monument to Mexican Independence in central Mexico City on Wednesday to protest the New Yorker’s visit, some holding placards emblazoned with captions such as “You are not Wall-come” and “Trump and Pena out”. “Trump has badmouthed Mexicans, it’s appalling that the president has invited him,” said Abril Marquez, a 23-year-old law student holding a sign saying “Trump, you’re not welcome!” Traditionally bitter political adversaries in Mexico have been united in their rejection of Trump, making Wednesday’s hastily-arranged encounter a gamble with few obvious benefits for Pena Nieto, whose approval ratings are at all-time lows. Gang violence is at the worst levels of his term, anger over political corruption is widespread, the peso currency is near record lows and the centrist president’s personal integrity is in question after a report that he plagiarized his university thesis. A government spokesman played down the accusation, saying there were “style errors” in the paper. Andres Rozental, a former deputy Mexican foreign minister responsible for North America, said he was at a loss to explain the Trump visit, describing it as a “big mistake” by the government. “Unless (Trump) comes out and makes a public statement disavowing all the things that he’s said, which I doubt very much that he will do, I don’t think there’s really anything that Pena Nieto can get out of this,” he said. Miguel Barbosa, Senate leader of the leftist opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution, who worked with Pena Nieto to push through landmark economic reforms earlier in his term, said the president was allowing himself to be used by Trump. “You don’t understand,” Barbosa said, directing a tweet at Pena Nieto, “the presence of (Trump) in Mexico at your invitation is behavior unworthy of the Mexican government.” Even the man Pena Nieto picked a year ago to be his ambassador to the United States did not hold back. “Nobody in the last 50 years has put Mexican-U.S. relations in such danger as Trump,” Miguel Basanez, an old friend of Pena Nieto who was replaced in April as ambassador after seven months in the job, said on Twitter. “I find the invitation deeply regrettable.” Trump has helped stir the bad blood with comments on Twitter during his campaign. Even as he prepared for his quick visit he was in a Twitter spat with a prominent critic south of the border, Vicente Fox, another former Mexican president.

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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto said on Thursday that his country had accepted Israel s offer to help it and the United States develop Central America, as Israel and Mexico seek to deepen business ties. Speaking at a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Pena Nieto added that the two nations had agreed to update their free trade agreement, which was signed in 2000. We have agreed to establish and begin the ... negotiations to look over this agreement so that the commercial relationship between both nations intensifies and grows, he said. Netanyahu was joined by a business delegation including representatives from communications firm AudioCodes Ltd, cyber security firm Verint Systems Inc and Mer Group, which specializes in telecommunications and cyber security. In Central America, Pena Nieto said Israel s assistance could bolster the United States and Mexico s efforts in the region, particularly in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. He noted that Israel brings experience from carrying out development projects in Africa. The United States and Mexico have been seeking to encourage investment in infrastructure improvements in Central America s so-called Northern Triangle in an effort to stem migration to the United States. Netanyahu s trip marked the first visit to Mexico by a sitting Israeli prime minister, Pena Nieto said. At the close of the news conference, Netanyahu invited Pena Nieto to Jerusalem. The relationship between the nations was strained earlier this year by a tweet in which Netanyahu appeared to praise U.S. President Donald Trump s plans to build a wall on the Mexican border. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin later issued a statement apologizing for any misunderstanding.

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PHOENIX (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Tuesday fighting economic espionage was a priority for the Department of Justice. Interviewed by Reuters in Phoenix, she said: “When it comes to economic espionage, this is in fact a tremendous problem because ... be they individuals or be they state actors ... essentially they’re stealing from future generations also. We take these matters very seriously... It is a matter of priority for us.”

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(Reuters) - Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton will undergo surgery early next month for prostate cancer, he said in a statement Tuesday. Staff for Dayton, 70, said last week he was weighing treatment options after saying he had cancer in late January. A day before he announced the diagnosis, Dayton collapsed while delivering his state-of-the-state address in St. Paul, but later said he did not think the fainting episode was related to his illness. Dayton will have surgery to remove his prostate on March 2, he said in the statement. The operation will be done at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Dayton said he will need to spend one night in the hospital. The cancer has not spread beyond his prostate, Dayton said. Dayton, a Democrat, served six years as a U.S. senator from Minnesota before he was elected to his first term as governor in 2010. His current term runs until early 2018.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two prominent religious conservatives defended U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday after he was widely criticized for blaming both white nationalists and counter-protesters for last weekend’s violence at a Virginia rally organized by neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Evangelical Christian Jerry Falwell Jr said Trump could be more polished and politically correct but is not racist. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who last week criticized the white nationalists’ “evil, sinful, disgusting behavior,” said unequivocally on Sunday that the faith community stood by Trump. The responses reflect a balancing act by conservative Christians as they try to square the images that emerged from the Virginia city of Charlottesville last weekend - torch-carrying white supremacists and neo-Nazis toting swastika flags - with support for a president that failed to condemn them roundly and immediately. Trump alienated fellow Republicans, corporate leaders and U.S. allies with his comments about the violence that broke out at a white nationalist protest against the removal of a Confederate statue in Charlottesville. He said “many sides” were to blame and that there were “very fine people” on both sides. Trump also decried the removal of Civil War monuments to the Confederacy that several cities have deemed offensive for their connection to slavery. But the remarks, including those at a fiery Trump news conference on Tuesday, may not dent support from his political base, where white evangelical Christian voters are a major component. Many in the evangelical Christian community condemned the neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists who marched in the University of Virginia town before one of them plowed through a crowd of counter-protesters and killed a 32-year-old woman. Fewer criticized Trump directly. Falwell, president of the Christian-based Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, said Trump likely had more detailed information on protesters when he described “fine people” on both sides. “One of the reasons I supported him is because he doesn’t say what’s politically correct, he says what is in his heart,” Falwell told ABC’s “This Week” program. “But he does not have a racist bone in his body.” National Public Radio reported on Sunday that a number of Liberty University graduates were preparing to return their diplomas to protest his support for Trump. Falwell said they misunderstood that support. Huckabee, a conservative Baptist minister before entering politics, said Trump “has the faith community.” “This is an attempt to discredit and ultimately dislodge Donald Trump from the White House,” Huckabee told Fox Business Network. Huckabee noted that only one person on a faith council that advises Trump had stepped down since the controversy. New York City megachurch pastor A.R. Bernard said he left Trump’s unofficial evangelical advisory board on Tuesday after having distanced himself for several months as “it became obvious that there was a deepening conflict in values between myself and the administration.” Johnnie Moore, an evangelical adviser to the White House, said in a statement he deeply respects Bernard. “We have every intention to continue to extend invitations to him to contribute his perspective on issues important to all of us,” he said. Pastor Mark Burns, an African-American televangelist who leads a small congregation in South Carolina and serves on the board, said in an interview on MSNBC on Saturday that he stood by Trump. “I don’t believe he supported neo-Nazis, I don’t believe he’s supporting white supremacists at all,” Burns said in an interview with MSNBC on Saturday. “I would have personally said stronger (things) in reference to the KKK, neo-Nazis, but I don’t have all the information.” Franklin Graham, the president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, denounced bigotry and racism on his Facebook page a day after the Charlottesville violence, but at the same time, he also took aim at politicians who tried to connect Trump to that turmoil. One member of the evangelical community, biblical studies professor Denny Burk of Boyce College in Kentucky, condemned the president’s remarks at Tuesday’s news conference as “more than disappointing.” “They were morally bankrupt and completely unacceptable. People who protest while chanting Nazi slogans are not ‘very fine people,’” Burk wrote in an article posted on his Facebook page.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday criticized Facebook Inc (FB.O) as “anti-Trump” and questioned its role during the 2016 presidential campaign, amid probes into alleged Russian interference in the election and possible collusion by Trump’s associates. His salvo came as the social media giant prepares to hand over 3,000 political ads to congressional investigators that it has said were likely purchased by Russian entities during and after last year’s presidential contest. Trump appeared to embrace the focus on the social media network in his comments on Wednesday, which also took aim at more traditional medial outlets, long targeted by the president as “fake news.” “Facebook was always anti-Trump. The networks were always anti-Trump,” Trump said on Twitter, levelling the same charge against the New York Times and the Washington Post. “Collusion?” Representatives for Facebook and the newspapers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s tweet. U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, which is among those investigating Russia’s role, said he expected to have the ads by next week and that they should be made public. “You really need to see them ... to recognise how cynical an effort this was by the Kremlin, how they sought to just accentuate those divisions ... and drive American against American,” Schiff told MSNBC, adding that Facebook and Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) executives should testify publicly about the issue. “I have concerns about how long it took Facebook to realise the Russians were advertising on their network,” Schiff told MSNBC, adding that he has spoken several times with the company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook and other technology companies are coming under increased scrutiny amid the Russia investigations. The probes, being conducted by several congressional committees along with the Department of Justice, have clouded Trump’s tenure since taking office in January and threatened his agenda, which has yet to secure a major legislative victory. Moscow has denied any collusion. Trump himself has previously praised Facebook and credited it with helping him win the November election. His campaign has said it spent some $70 million on Facebook ads, and it also ran a live Facebook show. His latest comments did not appear to affect shares of the company, which were up 1.4 percent at $166.50 a share in late morning trading after analysts raised their price target for the stock.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is unlikely to pick economic adviser Gary Cohn as his nominee for Federal Reserve chairman because Cohn is playing a crucial role in the White House tax reform effort, a senior administration official said on Wednesday. “No decision has been made and no candidate has been ruled out but Gary’s role is too crucial to getting tax reform done. It might be too important for him to continue to be the lead, for him to announce a change at this time,” the official said. The Republican president is looking to announce a Fed chair nominee before leaving on a trip to Asia on Nov. 3, in order to give his choice time to go through the Senate confirmation process. Current Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s term ends in early February. But an announcement is unlikely this week, said another source familiar with the situation. Trump told Republican senators during a private lunch on Tuesday that his focus for a new Fed chair was on Stanford University economist John Taylor, Fed Governor Jerome Powell and Yellen, a source familiar with the meeting said. When Trump asked the senators for a show of hands on whether they would prefer Taylor or Powell, the most support went for Taylor, the source said. Cohn irritated Trump by criticizing the president’s response to violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August at a white supremacist rally. But the two men in recent weeks seemed to have ironed out their differences, with Trump singling out Cohn for praise for his help in the tax reform effort. Trump is also considering a fifth candidate for the Fed job, former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh, sources have said. Trump told Fox Business Network that he admired Yellen but that the decision to pick a new Fed chair was something to which he would like to contribute. “You like to make your own mark, which is maybe one of the things she’s got a little bit against her, but I think she is terrific. We’ve had a great talk and we are obviously doing great together, you look at the markets,” Trump told the network.

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YANGON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda militants have called for support for Myanmar s Rohingya Muslims, who are facing a security crackdown that has sent about 400,000 of them fleeing to Bangladesh, warning that Myanmar would face punishment for its crimes . The exodus of Muslim refugees from Buddhist-majority Myanmar was sparked by a fierce security force response to a series of Rohingya militant attacks on police and army posts in the country s west on Aug. 25. The Islamist group behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the Untied States issued a statement urging Muslims around the world to support their fellow Muslims in Myanmar with aid, weapons and military support . The savage treatment meted out to our Muslim brothers ... shall not pass without punishment, al Qaeda said in a statement, according to the SITE monitoring group. The government of Myanmar shall be made to taste what our Muslim brothers have tasted. Myanmar says its security forces are engaged in a legitimate campaign against terrorists , whom it blames for attacks on the police and army, and on civilians. The government has warned of bomb attacks in cities, and al Qaeda s call to arms is likely to compound those concerns. We call upon all mujahid brothers in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and the Philippines to set out for Burma to help their Muslim brothers, and to make the necessary preparations training and the like - to resist this oppression, the group said.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday “establishing discipline and accountability in the environmental review and permitting process for infrastructure projects,” the White House said in a statement on Monday. Trump, who is visiting his residence at Trump Tower in New York City, will also participate in a discussion on infrastructure and give a statement on the subject at 3:45 p.m. (1945 GMT). The White House did not give additional details on the executive order. Trump, who was a real estate developer before becoming president, made rebuilding the country’s crumbling infrastructure a top campaign issue. He has proposed leveraging $200 billion in government spending into $1 trillion of projects to privatize the air traffic control system, strengthen rural infrastructure and repair bridges, roads and waterways. In June, Trump said one of the biggest obstacles to new infrastructure projects was “the painfully slow, costly and time-consuming process for getting permits and approvals to build.”

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DIYARBAKIR (Reuters) - Turkish authorities have issued arrest warrants for 25 soldiers across Turkey and the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in northern Cyprus, security sources said, as part of a widening crackdown following last year s failed military coup. The soldiers, on active duty and of varying ranks in Turkey s military, are being sought across 13 provinces and Turkish northern Cyprus, the sources said. Prosecutors in the southeastern province of Mardin ordered the arrest of the soldiers over the secret military structuring of the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, the sources said. Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 1999, is accused by Ankara of masterminding the July 15 coup attempt. He has denied involvement. Since the coup, more than 50,000 people have been jailed pending trial over links to Gulen, while 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from jobs in the military, public and private sectors. Rights groups and some of Turkey s Western allies have voiced concern about the crackdown, fearing the government is using the coup as a pretext to quash dissent. The government says only such a purge could neutralize the threat represented by Gulen s network, which it says deeply infiltrated institutions such as the army, schools and courts.

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SKOPJE (Reuters) - A Macedonian court sentenced 33 ethnic Albanians to jail terms on Thursday, including seven given life sentences, after they were found guilty of plotting attacks and clashing with the police in a 2015 shootout in which 22 people were killed. The 33 were accused of being part of a group of Albanian gunmen involved in the May 9, 2015 shootout with police in the northern Macedonian town of Kumanovo, in which eight police officers were among those killed and dozens were wounded. Some of the defendants were from neighboring Kosovo, while others were from Macedonia s own Albanian minority. The evidence offered by the prosecutor shows that the accused committed the criminal acts of terrorism and terrorist organization, the presiding judge said. The court was under heavy police protection, with helicopters flying overhead. The defendants protested while the verdict was being read, prompting the judge to order 33 of them to leave the courtroom before hearing sentences. The 2015 shootout occurred during a police raid that followed an attack by armed men on a border post. Some of them were former guerrillas from the National Liberation Army (NLA), an ethnic Albanian militia that had fought an insurgency in 2001 in which scores of people were killed. The NLA disbanded in 2002 and some of its former leaders entered the government. Naser Raufi, one of the defense lawyers, said the trial was staged and that he did not expect to see such lengthy sentences. This calls for an independent investigation, he said. Macedonia, a small ex-Yugoslav republic of about two million people, declared independence in 1991 and mostly avoided the violence that accompanied the break up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, until the clashes with ethnic Albanian fighters in 2001. Albanians are believed to make up around 30 percent of Macedonia s population, living mostly in the northwest near the borders with Kosovo and Albania.

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ZURICH (Reuters) - Nuclear proliferation watchdog CTBTO said on Saturday it had detected two seismic events in North Korea on Saturday but they were probably not deliberate explosions in the isolated country. Two #Seismic Events! 0829UTC & much smaller @ 0443UTC unlikely Man-made! Similar to collapse event 8.5 mins after DPRK6! Analysis ongoing, CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo said in a Twitter post. China s earthquake administration said it had detected a magnitude 3.4 earthquake in North Korea that was a suspected explosion , while an official at South Korea s meteorological agency said the initial view was that it was a natural quake.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - When former reality television contestant Summer Zervos accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct last fall, she pursued her claims solely in the court of public opinion, since the allegations dated too far back to allow a lawsuit. But last month, she found a fresh approach to fight the former host of “The Apprentice,” who has vehemently denied her allegations that he groped her in 2007. By professing his innocence, the man who is now president of the United States had effectively called her a liar, Servos alleges in a defamation lawsuit. The suit copied a rare legal tactic employed most notably by several women who have accused the actor and comedian Bill Cosby of sexual assault: using his denials as the basis for a defamation claim. It is not uncommon for high-profile allegations against celebrities to prompt defamation lawsuits, but they are usually filed by the star against the accuser. In 2014, however, Joseph Cammarata, the attorney for Cosby accuser Tamara Green, realized he could adapt that strategy for his own purposes after Cosby’s lawyer issued a statement calling the allegations “fantastical.” Like many other Cosby accusers, Green was unable to sue for assault because the alleged incident occurred decades ago. “A direct claim for the assault is not available, so I came up with the idea that a defamation claim would be the appropriate vehicle to use to address the underlying harm,” said Cammarata, whose lawsuit now includes seven Cosby accusers as plaintiffs. All told, 10 Cosby accusers filed four defamation lawsuits in three states. In simple terms, the argument is that Trump and Cosby have effectively branded the women as liars by denying the incidents occurred. But the women face a difficult challenge in making their cases, experts say. “Merely saying, ‘I didn’t do it,’ is traditionally not seen in defamation law as calling your accuser a liar, even though logically that’s what it means,” said Rod Smolla, dean of the Delaware Law School and a First Amendment scholar. “But if you go beyond that – if you go from, ‘I didn’t do it,’ to, ‘She’s a liar,’ now you have arguably made a statement of fact” that could be subject to liability, he added. Trump’s status as president does not shield him from civil liability for actions he took prior to assuming office. In a statement on Tuesday, the attorney defending Trump in the Zervos lawsuit, Marc Kasowitz, said he and Trump’s personal lawyer would soon file a response to the lawsuit. “President Trump continues to deny any allegation of wrongdoing raised in said complaint,” he said. Cosby, 79, who faces allegations of sexual misconduct from approximately 50 women, has also denied any wrongdoing. The Cosby and Trump plaintiffs are taking on a tough double burden, experts said. First, the only way to show the denials by both men are untrue is to prove the incidents took place as described. “The burden is going to be on her to show that Trump is actually saying something that’s false,” Clay Calvert, a First Amendment expert at the University of Florida, said of Zervos. In addition, the women must show Trump and Crosby crossed the line into defamation by deliberately making false statements that seriously harmed the accusers’ reputations. In defamation cases, courts typically examine statements to determine whether they were factual or opinion, as expressing an opinion is generally protected by the First Amendment. Making that distinction can be challenging. In the Cosby cases, for instance, judges have split on whether the lawsuits should proceed, even coming to opposite conclusions regarding the same statement from his attorney. U.S. District Judge Mark Mastroianni in Massachusetts rejected Cosby’s attempts to have two cases, including Green’s lawsuit, thrown out. In his rulings, the judge found that a November 2014 statement from Cosby’s lawyer calling the allegations “unsubstantiated, fantastical stories” could be reasonably seen as factual, and therefore potentially defamatory. By contrast, a Pittsburgh federal judge, Arthur Schwab, tossed a similar case against Cosby, finding that the same statement was “pure opinion” and thus protected. Unlike Cosby, who has been fairly circumspect in his public statements, Trump has aggressively attacked his accusers, calling the claims “100 percent fabricated and made-up.” His rhetoric could make him more vulnerable to a defamation claim, experts said. Trump has said he never met Zervos at a hotel, despite her allegation that he groped her at a hotel in Beverly Hills, California. That type of specific fact-based assertion can also make it easier to show defamation if it can be proven false, according to Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California in Los Angeles. “So much depends on the particular statement and the particular context surrounding that statement,” he said.

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ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Ivory Coast will pay thousands of soldiers 15 million CFA francs ($25,782) each as part of buy-outs aimed at reducing the size of its unruly and mutiny-prone military, documents showed on Monday. Africa s fastest growing economy in 2016, Ivory Coast was hit earlier this year by successive uprisings by low-ranking troops. The costly bonuses paid to end the unrest helped balloon the budget deficit this year, and the episode tarnished its image as one of the continent s rising economic stars. The government said last week that it would retire around 1,000 soldiers by the end of the year as part of efforts to bring the force - estimated at about 25,000 troops - in line with accepted standards . A spokesman did not say last week how much the soldiers would receive under the voluntary scheme. However, a document obtained by Reuters outlining the plan stated that each retired soldier would receive a payment of 15 million CFA francs. Neither the spokesman nor Ivory Coast s defense minister were available to comment on Monday. Diplomats said the move signaled that the government was beginning to implement a military reform law. According to a copy of the law seen by Reuters, 4,400 troops are to leave the army over four years. It was not immediately clear if that figure includes soldiers already scheduled to retire during the period. Ivory Coast s army was thrown together from rival loyalist and rebel factions at the end of a 2011 civil war that brought President Alassane Ouattara to power after his predecessor Laurent Gbagbo rejected his defeat in a 2010 run-off election. It remains plagued by internal divisions. Diplomats and analysts say the force is bloated with unqualified personnel and vulnerable to political manipulation. An adviser to Parliament Speaker Guillaume Soro, considered a leading candidate to replace term-limited President Ouattara in 2020, was arrested in October after a secret arms cache at his home helped mutinying soldiers halt a loyalist advance. Soro and his supporters say the charges were politically motivated. ($1 = 581.8000 CFA francs)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s team has canceled an appearance before Congress by his nominee for defense secretary, retired General James Mattis, regarding a waiver he needs for the post, congressional officials said on Wednesday. The U.S. House of Representatives had been due to hear Mattis testify on Thursday and he had agreed to appear. Mattis, who retired from the Marine Corps in 2013, is technically ineligible to be defense secretary since he has not been a civilian for at least seven years. That means Congress would need to grant a waiver, something it has not done since 1950. House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer said it was his understanding the Trump transition team had blocked Mattis from testifying. Congressional aides also confirmed that Mattis had agreed to testify but the appearance had been blocked. The decision appeared to be part of an effort to keep the attention on Mattis’ confirmation hearing in the Senate, which is scheduled for earlier on Thursday. “This (waiver) is not a minor issue. This is a major issue affecting the principle of civilian control of the military, and Ranking Member (Representative Adam) Smith believes deeply that General Mattis should come speak with the members about it,” said Barron Youngsmith, a spokesman for Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee. A Trump transition team spokeswoman did not speak directly to the House hearing but said Mattis’ current focus was on the Senate confirmation process and “testifying at his confirmation hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.” “If confirmed he looks forward to working with both the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, which play critical roles in supporting our forces and ensuring civilian control of the military,” Alleigh Marre said in a statement. Hoyer said Mattis might be the best of the nominees for top administration positions put forward by the Republican Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20. Republicans control the Senate, so Mattis is expected to be confirmed if he receives the appropriate waiver. The Senate and House must both agree to exempt him from a law written when the Department of Defense was created to ensure that the U.S. military is under civilian command. Senators expressed little opposition to Mattis’ appointment at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on civilian control of the military on Tuesday, as the panel considered whether to issue the waiver. Outside experts testified. Senator John McCain, the Senate panel’s chairman, said he would “fully support” the waiver legislation, which is expected to pass Congress. Mattis, 66, has been warmly received by senior defense figures among both Republicans and Democrats, who believe he will adhere to core alliances and principles, even ones challenged by Trump during his election campaign.

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Britain will maintain full alignment after Brexit with the European Union s single market and customs union rules that support peace, cooperation and economy on the island of Ireland, an agreement between the bloc and London said on Friday. It added that Britain will ensure that no new regulatory barriers develop between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. For the full text of the agreement, please see: here

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DANANG, Vietnam (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed a fresh start to the relationship between the countries after a meeting that saw them agree to work more closely on North Korea. The leaders met on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the Vietnamese resort city of Danang. Ties between China and Japan, the world s second- and third-largest economies, have been plagued by a long-running territorial dispute over a cluster of East China Sea islets. At the end of the meeting, President Xi said this is a meeting that marks a fresh start of relations between Japan and China. I totally feel the same way, Abe told reporters. Abe said he has proposed visiting China at an appropriate time, which would then be followed by a Xi visit to Japan. At the meeting, the two countries agreed to deepen their cooperation on North Korea and to hold a trilateral summit with South Korea at the earliest possible date. With the North Korea situation at an important phase, the role China ought to play is very big, Abe said. China and Japan have also agreed to accelerate talks for an early implementation of a communication mechanism between their military forces, Abe said. He also proposed that Japan and China cooperate in doing business in third countries. China s statement about the meeting, released by the official Xinhua news agency, cited Xi as telling Abe that stable relations were in both sides interests, and that they must make unremitting efforts to continue improving ties. The two countries must take constructive steps to appropriately manage and control disputes that exist between the two countries , Xi added.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States wants Pakistan to move quickly to show good faith in supporting efforts to counter militants operating in Afghanistan and in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table, the senior U.S. diplomat for South Asia said on Friday. Speaking after accompanying U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on a visit to the region, including Pakistan, Alice Wells said Washington looked forward to seeing practical steps from Pakistan over the next few weeks and months. The secretary stressed the importance of Pakistan moving quickly to demonstrate good faith and efforts to use its influence to create the conditions that will get the Taliban to the negotiating table, Wells, the acting assistant secretary of state for South Asia, told reporters. Wells said Pakistan s long-standing relationships with militant organizations was a threat to its own stability and said the Taliban leadership and the allied Haqqani network still retained the ability to plan and recuperate and reside with their families in Pakistan. She said Washington wanted Pakistan to show the same commitment it had made to defeat militant groups domestically to those threatening Afghanistan or India. It s up to them whether or not they want to work with us, Wells said. And if they don t ... then we ll adjust accordingly. Wells declined to elaborate on what action the United States might take or what specific actions it wanted Pakistan to take. Relations between uneasy allies United States and Pakistan have frayed in recent years, with Washington repeatedly accusing Islamabad of helping Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network militants who stage attacks in Afghanistan. Pakistan denies doing so. U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to get tough with Pakistan unless it changed its behavior, with U.S. officials threatening further reductions in aid and mooting targeted sanctions against Pakistani officials. On Monday, during a visit to Kabul, Tillerson urged Pakistan to act against safe havens on its soil. Pakistan needs to, I think, take a clear-eyed view of the situation that they are confronted with in terms of the number of terrorist organizations that find safe haven inside of Pakistan, he said. Pakistani officials bristle at the idea that the country is not doing enough against militants and say Pakistan has suffered more than 60,000 casualties in the war on terror since the Sept. 11 attacks in United States in 2001.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The American Civil Liberties Union is launching what it bills as the first grassroots mobilization effort in its nearly 100-year history, as it seeks to harness a surge of energy among left-leaning activists since the November election of Republican Donald Trump as U.S. president. The campaign, known as PeoplePower, kicks off on Saturday with a town hall-style event in Miami featuring “resistance training” that will be streamed live at more than 2,300 local gatherings nationwide. It will focus on free speech, reproductive rights and immigration and include presentations from legal experts, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero and “Top Chef” television star Padma Lakshmi. Membership in the civil rights organization, which was founded in 1920, has tripled to more than 1 million since Trump’s election, the group says. As activists have marched in streets, demonstrated at airports and confronted U.S. lawmakers regularly since election day, progressive groups like MoveOn and the newly formed Indivisible have sought ways to translate that frustration into local action. That is the idea behind PeoplePower, which represents a major strategic shift for an organization that has traditionally focused on courtroom litigation, Romero said in a phone interview on Friday. Approximately 135,000 people have signed up for the campaign. “Before, our membership was largely older and much smaller,” he said. “Our members would provide us with money so we could file the cases and do the advocacy. What’s clear with the Trump election is that our new members are engaged and want to be deployed.” For example, the Miami event will encourage individuals to engage local officials in conversations about immigrant policies in their town or city. The ACLU has prepared “model” ordinances ensuring the protection of immigrant rights that supporters can press legislators to adopt, part of a campaign to create “freedom cities,” according to ACLU political director Faiz Shakir. Suggested tactics, like the use of text messages as a mass mobilization tool, will mirror some of those employed by the insurgent presidential campaign of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who mounted a surprisingly robust challenge to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. “It’s completely unprecedented,” Romero said of the response since Trump’s victory. “People are wide awake right now and have been since the night of the election.”

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(Reuters) - Pope Francis’s remarks on Thursday that U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is “not Christian” due to his views on immigration sparked jokes on social media, and the pope quickly trended on Twitter in the United States. The businessman and former reality TV star called the pope’s comments “disgraceful” and said he was proud to be a Christian. Twitter users poked fun at the brouhaha. “Watching Trump fight with the Pope might be the most fun you can have with your clothes on,” tweeted actor Albert Brooks (@AlbertBrooks). Television comedy writer Wendy Molyneux (@WendyMolyneux) joked about the controversy by attributing a fake quotation to Trump that mocked the presidential candidate’s penchant for bawdy exaggeration. “‘You know, a lot of my friends are Popes, and they love what I’m doing. This one Pope is such a loser. And fat.’ - @realDonaldTrump,” Molyneux wrote Thursday. Paul Begala (@PaulBegala), a political consultant who is an adviser to a Super PAC helping Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, said: “How long before realDonaldTrump says the Pope is totally broke. Doesn’t own a single golf course. Never even dated a supermodel. #Loser.” “How dare the pope be concerned with the poor & disenfranchised! I mean Jesus never was!” tweeted actor Rainn Wilson (@rainnwilson). “The Late Show,” hosted by comedian Stephen Colbert, tweeted a poll Thursday in which it asked “How can Donald Trump get back in the Pope’s good graces?” The options listed were “Cabinet position,” “Purchase indulgences,” “Evict Protestants” and “Sensual back rub.” Trump, long the leader in national opinion polls, and five Republican rivals face off on Saturday in South Carolina’s primary. While the pope and Trump are now at odds, the real estate developer had previously praised the pontiff. In 2013, the year Francis began his papacy, Trump compared himself to the pope favorably. On Christmas Day 2013: Trump tweeted, “The new Pope is a humble man, very much like me, which probably explains why I like him so much!” The pope was not the only powerful figure to run afoul of the Republican candidate on Thursday. Media titan Rupert Murdoch weighed in on Twitter to contest Trump’s claims that Fox News is biased against him after a national poll by NBC and the Wall Street Journal showed Senator Ted Cruz inching ahead of Trump. “Trump blames me for WSJ poll, fights FoxNews,” tweeted Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch), executive chairman of both Fox News parent 21st Century Fox Inc (FOXA.O) and Journal owner News Corp (NWSA.O). “Time to calm down. If I running anti-Trump conspiracy then doing lousy job!” For more on the 2016 presidential race, see the Reuters blog, “Tales from the Trail” (here).

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LONDON (Reuters) - The British Foreign Office said it had summoned the North Korean ambassador to condemn Wednesday s ballistic missile test. North Korea said it had successfully tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile in a breakthrough that put the U.S. mainland within range of its nuclear weapons. I summoned the North Korean Ambassador to the Foreign Office to make clear to him our condemnation of this latest ballistic missile test, Minister for Asia and Pacific Mark Field said in a statement. North Korea claims it wants to bring security and prosperity to its people. But its actions are creating only insecurity and deepening its isolation, said Field. Britain is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. The latest test was the highest and longest any North Korean missile had flown, and it landed in the sea near Japan.

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO accused Russia on Thursday of misleading the alliance over the scope of its war games last month in violation of rules meant to reduce East-West tensions, but Moscow said NATO was stirring up anti-Russian propaganda. At a meeting with Russia s ambassador to the U.S.-led alliance, Alexander Grushko, NATO envoys said that Moscow had given conflicting accounts of the exercises known as Zapad, or West , in Belarus, the Baltic Sea, western Russia and its Kaliningrad outpost, diplomats said. NATO ambassadors pressed their message home at a meeting with Grushko at the NATO-Russia Council, a forum that was effectively suspended months after Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula in March 2014, but now meets regularly again. Russia s defense ministry said the war games included some 12,700 troops and ran from Sept. 14 to Sept 20, with a fictional scenario focusing on attacks by militants. NATO says there were far more troops than 12,700 and they simulated an attack on the West during August and September. Saying they are concerned that large-scale, unannounced exercises could accidentally trigger a conflict in eastern Europe between NATO and Russia, Western allies have pressed Moscow to be clear about its military exercises and to invite more observers. The number of troops participating in the exercises significantly exceeded the number announced before the exercise, the scenario was a different one and the geographical scope was larger than previously announced, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters after the meeting. Under a Cold War-era treaty known as the Vienna document, which sets out rules for exercises, war games that number more than 13,000 troops should be open to observers who can also fly over the drills and allow them to talk to soldiers. NATO did send one expert to a visitor day in Russia and two experts to a visitor day in Belarus. NATO diplomats say Moscow massed some 100,000 troops from the Arctic to eastern Ukraine, where Russia backs separatists, and used ballistic missiles and electronic warfare to test its combat capability in Europe. Grushko said NATO s assessment was wrong and NATO was wrong to lump all the exercises going on in Russia last month under the Zapad name. NATO countries are counting all the military activities that took place in the Russian Federation and counting them as part of Zapad, he told a news conference after the meeting. We don t accept the propaganda about the Russian exercises, Grushko said. It was an unprecedented propaganda attack, he said. Some western officials have expressed concern that parts of the Baltic states, which have large ethnic Russian minorities, could be seized by Moscow, much as Russia took control of Ukraine s Crimea in 2014. However, Stoltenberg said that Russia had withdrawn its troops from Belarus after the Zapad exercises. Baltic countries had feared Moscow might leave them on NATO s borders.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bailey White, 13, stood patiently in line with her little brother Keaton at the gift store inside the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue on Wednesday afternoon, each clutching a stuffed terrier named Charlie that cost $35 per item. The beagle, with a Trump monogram on its white bandana, was modeled on the pet dog of Eric Trump, the son of President-elect Donald Trump. It was one of the few items left on the shelves of the store, which had sold out of that morning’s fresh batch of red “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” t-shirts by noon. Bailey and Keaton, 10, however, were happy with their score. The children, who had traveled to New York from Florida originally for the Thanksgiving Day Parade, told Reuters they were huge fans of Donald Trump, listing at the top of their reasons his commitment to reduce illegal immigration. Or, as the younger brother puts it, “To stop bad guys from getting in our country.” As businesses around the president-elect’s glitzy New York home have had to deal with extra security and crowds reducing foot traffic sales in the lead up to Fifth Avenue’s busiest shopping weekend, Trump souvenirs have been flying off the shelves at the billionaire’s gift store. Trump supporters like the White siblings and their mom Laura have proven to be a boon for at least one of the his businesses in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. presidential election. In just one hour, a Reuters reporter counted at least 100 people crowding the shop located on the lower level of the Tower to buy hats, pins and more. Many were disappointed to find the $30 dollar red “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” hat and all campaign t-shirts out of stock. Just one door over, a single salesman sat in dim lighting in the middle of the day at a New York City souvenir store, also in Trump Tower, greeting visitors with, “Looking for Trump merchandise?” before redirecting them. When asked if the number of visitors inside the Trump Tower had increased since the presidential results, a security guard in the building replied: “One hundred percent.” Outside, where some of the world’s most well-known retailers spend more on rent than in just about any other city, shoppers had to fight through security, crowds and media packs to enter the Gucci store or tony jeweler Tiffany’s. Rosalia Betancourt, 69, first trekked to Trump Tower two days after Trump was elected in search for the eponymous red hat. They were sold out. When Betancourt, who moved to New York from Venezuela more than four decades ago, braved holiday crowds a week later on Wednesday, she had to leave empty-handed once again. “It’s all right” she said. “I guess I’ll go online. It just has to be red.” Sari Nielsen, 71, was waiting at the Trump Cafe next door to the shop for the crowds to die down. “I want to buy my nephew Pete a Trump golf hat for Thanksgiving,” said Nielsen, who moved to New York in 1975 from Argentina. Shoppers also had the option of buying Trump cufflinks, blankets, bags, perfume, candy, books authored by members of the family and more. The line shortened somewhat during lunchtime when visitors turned their attention to the Trump Grill, which does not offer reservations but a $25 dollar fixed-price meal. Trisha Williams, 50, of San Jose, California also made the trip to New York for the parade with her son Cayden, 8, who stayed up and watched the election. The two stood outside the Trump Tower with their gold Trump store bags. “We wanted to experience it all and buy some merchandise,” Trisha said. But many of the items she wanted to buy were not available. “They didn’t really have very much,” Trisha said noting that a saleswoman at the store gave her a card outlining how she can make purchases online and that she’s already followed her advice. “I wanted a jacket with a Trump logo and a t-shirt, but they didn’t really have anything left.”

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CAIRO (Reuters) - A Saudi-led military coalition said on Saturday an air strike that hit a market in Yemen s northern Saadah province was a legitimate military target, the Saudi news agency reported. On Wednesday, medics and a Reuters witness said an air strike carried out by the coalition killed 26 people at a hotel and an adjoining market. The attack, which struck the Sahar district of the vast territory that borders Saudi Arabia, demolished the budget hotel and reduced market stalls outside to a heap of twisted sheet metal. The coalition statement reviewed the incident and quoted its spokesman as saying the target was the gathering point for some armed Houthi militants. The military alliance led by Saudi Arabia has launched thousands of air strikes against Yemen s armed Houthi movement, which hails from Saadah and now controls much of the country.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One thing is definitely going right for U.S. President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans who control Congress: they are steadily getting conservatives appointed as judges, advancing their long-held ambition of reshaping the federal judiciary. So concern among conservatives arose after Democrats swept to victory in state and local elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere this month, signaling potential trouble for Republicans in the November 2018 mid-term elections in which control over Congress is at stake. If the party’s slim 52-48 majority in the Senate, which reviews and confirms federal judicial nominees, is at risk, Republicans may need to move even more quickly on getting judges confirmed by the Senate for their lifetime posts, some legal experts said. “Obviously, who gets nominated and the pace of confirmations ... changes dramatically if the Senate were to flip back to the Democrats,” said John Malcolm, a former Justice Department lawyer and now an analyst at the Heritage Foundation conservative think tank in Washington. Republicans “should be paying particular attention to pushing through as many nominees as they can,” added Malcolm, also active in the Federalist Society, a conservative lawyers’ group whose members have frequently been tapped for judicial posts by Republican presidents. Trump and congressional Republicans have not passed any major legislation since he took office in January despite controlling the White House and Congress. But after a slow start that had worried conservative activists, Republicans have made major headway on judicial appointments in recent weeks. The Senate has now voted to confirm 14 Trump judicial nominees, including Donald Coggins on Thursday as a district judge in South Carolina. That includes Supreme Court appointee Neil Gorsuch, eight others on regional appeals courts ranking just below the Supreme Court and five on trial courts. Obama had only seven confirmed at this point in his presidency. Democrats, who accused Republicans of impeding nominations from Trump’s Democratic predecessor Barack Obama, have said Republicans are trying to ram Trump’s nominees through the Senate, including some they say lack basic qualifications. Conservative groups that just last month were criticizing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for the pace of confirmations are now applauding him. McConnell, in a move with little precedent in U.S. history, last year refused to act on Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, paving the way for Trump to restore the high court’s conservative majority with Gorsuch’s appointment. “When the history books are written about the Trump administration, I believe perhaps the most long-lasting and significant legacy will be the men and women appointed and confirmed to the federal bench,” Republican Senator Ted Cruz said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. Trump has a unique opportunity to reshape the judiciary. He inherited more than 100 vacancies when he took office, twice the number Obama inherited. The number has since climbed above 160. Trump generally has selected deeply conservative nominees, many in their 40s and 50s and able to serve for decades. He could name up to 30 percent of the federal bench in his first four-year term, said Leonard Leo, a Trump advisor on judicial nominations. Having a more conservative judiciary could be pivotal on legal disputes involving presidential powers, abortion, the death penalty, religious rights, gay rights, litigation involving corporations and other matters. The main impact of this infusion of conservative jurists will be to flip the ideological breakdown of several liberal-leaning federal appeals courts, said political scientist Sheldon Goldman, an expert in judicial selection at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Federal appeals courts, divided into 11 geographic regions plus two based in Washington, often have the final say in major legal disputes because the Supreme Court hears only a small number of cases annually. During Wednesday’s Judiciary Committee hearing for six Trump judicial nominees, Democrats said Republicans were acting on too many too quickly, preventing proper questioning of the candidates. Trump’s appointees may be more reliably conservative than those of previous Republican presidents. Goldman said nearly all have a connection to the Federalist Society, providing a “very consistent ideological vetting process.” Leo, the society’s executive vice president, helped compile a shortlist of Supreme Court nominees for Trump that included Gorsuch. Judges will be a focus of the society’s national convention that started on Thursday in Washington, with Trump selections including Gorsuch due to appear. While Republican lawmakers have been divided over legislation on issues including taxes and healthcare, judicial nominees are an issue on which tend to agree. “Fixing Obamacare is no easy task,” said Carrie Severino, chief counsel of the Judicial Crisis Network conservative legal advocacy group, “whereas the president has done such an excellent job of choosing nominees that it’s a no-brainer.”

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s lead over Republican rival Donald Trump increased to more than 7 percentage points in a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday, from less than 3 points on Thursday. The shift came as Trump struggled to reset his campaign following a stretch of controversies. About 42 percent of likely voters favored Clinton and about 35 percent preferred Trump, according to the Aug. 4-8 online poll of 1,152 likely voters, which had a credibility interval of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The others would either pick another candidate, would not vote, or “don’t know/refused.” The results reflected a decline in support for Trump, rather than a boost for Clinton: In last Thursday’s poll, 42 percent of likely voters favored Clinton and about 39 percent favored Trump. Among registered voters over the same period, Clinton held a lead of nearly 13 percentage points, up from about 5 percentage points on Thursday, according to the poll. The five-day survey concluded on a mixed day for the Trump campaign. After squabbles last week with party leaders and the parents of a Muslim American soldier killed in Iraq, Trump sought to turn the page with a speech outlining an economic platform of tax breaks and regulatory rollbacks. But in what was surely unwelcome news for Trump’s campaign, 50 heavyweight Republican national security officials, in a letter published on Monday, said that Trump would be “the most reckless president in American history.” Trump hit back, saying the signatories “deserve the blame for making the world such a dangerous place.” Trump faced more dissent within his party on Monday. A former CIA officer, Evan McMullin, announced he would run as an independent alternative to Trump for conservative Republicans, and Republican Senator Susan Collins said she would not vote for Trump. In a separate Reuters/Ipsos survey that gave respondents the option to choose from Clinton, Trump, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Clinton leads Trump by about 6 percentage points. Of the alternative party candidates, Johnson came in third with nearly 8 percentage points, up from 6 points on Thursday. Stein has about 2 percentage points. The Aug. 4-8 survey of 1,154 likely voters had a credibility interval of 3 percentage points. McMullin was not an option in the poll.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Michael Moore, the left-wing filmmaker known for provocative documentaries that deliver a biting message, will release an anti-Donald Trump movie on Tuesday as Hollywood ramps up efforts to support Democratic White House contender Hillary Clinton in the final weeks of the 2016 election campaign. Moore, the Oscar-winning maker of documentaries about guns, the Iraq war and the U.S. health system, said on Twitter he would release “Michael Moore in Trumpland” in a free screening in Manhattan on Tuesday night at one movie theater, followed by commercial release in theaters in Los Angeles and New York on Wednesday. The film’s release comes three weeks before the Nov. 8 election. The film is based on a one-man show, “October Surprise,” that Moore, a vocal critic of the Republican presidential contender, recently performed in Ohio and shows Moore “dive right into hostile territory,” according to a brief description. The film is being released as scores of celebrities rally round Clinton ahead of the Nov. 8 election. More than 30, including Barbra Streisand, Billy Crystal, Julia Roberts, Helen Mirren and Lena Dunham, staged a fundraising show on Broadway on Monday with tickets that sold for up $10,000 each and which was streamed live online. Singer Jennifer Lopez and rocker Jon Bon Jovi will play separate Get Out The Vote gigs in Florida next week on behalf of Clinton’s campaign. “Iron Man” star Robert Downey Jr. and actors Neil Patrick Harris, Don Cheadle and Julianne Moore are among those asking Americans to “save the day” in a social media campaign aimed at getting people to vote against Republican businessman and former reality star Trump. Clinton counts more, and more vocal, celebrity supporters than Trump, whose backers include Clint Eastwood, Jon Voight, country singer Loretta Lynn, Kirstie Alley and rapper Azealia Banks. But fans of celebrities are not necessarily fans of the candidate they support. Comedian Amy Schumer was booed at her stand-up show in Florida on Sunday after she attacked Trump and Republican voters, causing some 200 audience members to walk out, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

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BERLIN (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron, accused by critics of being out of touch with ordinary people, denied in an interview with a German magazine he was aloof, saying that he was merely trying to stamp out cronyism between politicians and the media. The 39-year-old former banker was caught on video earlier this month saying during a visit to a struggling company that workers protesting his economic policies would do better to get a job in a nearby aluminum factory battling to find employees. That prompted the far-left and far-right, who have sought to cast Macron as out of touch with the common man and a president for the rich, to say he had shown contempt . But Macron told Germany s Der Spiegel: I am not aloof. When I travel through the country, when I visit a factory, my staff tell me after three hours that I am ruining the schedule. He added: When I am with French people, I am not aloof because I belong to them. Macron said being surrounded by journalists was not akin with being close to the people, adding: A president should keep the media at arm s length. He has said he planned a Jupiterian presidency - dignified and weighing his pronouncements carefully - a departure from his often-mocked predecessor Francois Hollande s man-of-the-people style. Macron said on Friday in a surprise move that he would give his first long live TV interview on Sunday evening.

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump believes in a free and independent press but he will not hesitate to point out flawed reporting, the U.S Vice President Mike Pence said on Monday. “Rest assured the president and I both strongly support a free and independent press but you can anticipate that the president and all of us will continue to call out the media when they play fast and loose with the facts,” Pence told a news conference at the NATO headquarters in Brussels. “When the media gets it wrong, President Trump will take his case straight to the American people to set the record straight,” he added.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Native American reservations cover just 2 percent of the United States, but they may contain about a fifth of the nation’s oil and gas, along with vast coal reserves. Now, a group of advisors to President-elect Donald Trump on Native American issues wants to free those resources from what they call a suffocating federal bureaucracy that holds title to 56 million acres of tribal lands, two chairmen of the coalition told Reuters in exclusive interviews. The group proposes to put those lands into private ownership - a politically explosive idea that could upend more than century of policy designed to preserve Indian tribes on U.S.-owned reservations, which are governed by tribal leaders as sovereign nations. The tribes have rights to use the land, but they do not own it. They can drill it and reap the profits, but only under regulations that are far more burdensome than those applied to private property. “We should take tribal land away from public treatment,” said Markwayne Mullin, a Republican U.S. Representative from Oklahoma and a Cherokee tribe member who is co-chairing Trump’s Native American Affairs Coalition. “As long as we can do it without unintended consequences, I think we will have broad support around Indian country.” Trump’s transition team did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The plan dovetails with Trump’s larger aim of slashing regulation to boost energy production. It could deeply divide Native American leaders, who hold a range of opinions on the proper balance between development and conservation. The proposed path to deregulated drilling - privatizing reservations - could prove even more divisive. Many Native Americans view such efforts as a violation of tribal self-determination and culture. “Our spiritual leaders are opposed to the privatization of our lands, which means the commoditization of the nature, water, air we hold sacred,” said Tom Goldtooth, a member of both the Navajo and the Dakota tribes who runs the Indigenous Environmental Network. “Privatization has been the goal since colonization – to strip Native Nations of their sovereignty.” Reservations governed by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs are intended in part to keep Native American lands off the private real estate market, preventing sales to non-Indians. An official at the Bureau of Indian Affairs did not respond to a request for comment. The legal underpinnings for reservations date to treaties made between 1778 and 1871 to end wars between indigenous Indians and European settlers. Tribal governments decide how land and resources are allotted among tribe members. Leaders of Trump’s coalition did not provide details of how they propose to allocate ownership of the land or mineral rights - or to ensure they remained under Indian control. One idea is to limit sales to non-Indian buyers, said Ross Swimmer, a co-chair on Trump’s advisory coalition and an ex-chief of the Cherokee nation who worked on Indian affairs in the Reagan administration. “It has to be done with an eye toward protecting sovereignty,” he said. The Trump-appointed coalition’s proposal comes against a backdrop of broader environmental tensions on Indian reservations, including protests against a petroleum pipeline by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and their supporters in North Dakota. On Sunday, amid rising opposition, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Sunday said it had denied a permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline project, citing a need to explore alternate routes. The Trump transition team has expressed support for the pipeline, however, and his administration could revisit the decision once it takes office in January. Tribes and their members could potentially reap vast wealth from more easily tapping resources beneath reservations. The Council of Energy Resource Tribes, a tribal energy consortium, estimated in 2009 that Indian energy resources are worth about $1.5 trillion. In 2008, the Bureau of Indian Affairs testified before Congress that reservations contained about 20 percent of untapped oil and gas reserves in the U.S. Deregulation could also benefit private oil drillers including Devon Energy Corp, Occidental Petroleum, BP and others that have sought to develop leases on reservations through deals with tribal governments. Those companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Trump’s transition team commissioned the 27-member Native American Affairs Coalition to draw up a list of proposals to guide his Indian policy on issues ranging from energy to health care and education. The backgrounds of the coalition’s leadership are one sign of its pro-drilling bent. At least three of four chair-level members have links to the oil industry. Mullin received about eight percent of his campaign funding over the years from energy companies, while co-chair Sharon Clahchischilliage - a Republican New Mexico State Representative and Navajo tribe member - received about 15 percent from energy firms, according to campaign finance disclosures reviewed by Reuters. Swimmer is a partner at a Native American-focused investment fund that has invested heavily in oil and gas companies, including Energy Transfer Partners – the owner of the pipeline being protested in North Dakota. ETP did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The fourth co-chair, Eddie Tullis, a former chairman of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in Alabama, is involved in casino gaming, a major industry on reservations. Clahchischilliage and Tullis did not respond to requests for comment. Several tribes, including the Crow Nation in Montana and the Southern Ute in Colorado, have entered into mining and drilling deals that generate much-needed revenue for tribe members and finance health, education and infrastructure projects on their reservations. But a raft of federal permits are required to lease, mortgage, mine, or drill – a bureaucratic thicket that critics say contributes to higher poverty on reservations. As U.S. oil and gas drilling boomed over the past decade, tribes struggled to capitalize. A 2015 report from the Government Accountability Office found that poor management by the Bureau of Indian Affairs hindered energy development and resulted in lost revenue for tribes. “The time it takes to go from lease to production is three times longer on trust lands than on private land,” said Mark Fox, chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes in Forth Berthold, North Dakota, which produces about 160,000 barrels of oil per day. “If privatizing has some kind of a meaning that rights are given to private entities over tribal land, then that is worrying,” Fox acknowledged. “But if it has to do with undoing federal burdens that can occur, there might be some justification.” The contingent of Native Americans who fear tribal-land privatization cite precedents of lost sovereignty and culture. The Dawes Act of 1887 offered Indians private lots in exchange for becoming U.S. citizens - resulting in more than 90 million acres passing out of Indian hands between the 1880s and 1930s, said Kevin Washburn, who served as Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior from 2012 until he resigned in December 2015. “Privatization of Indian lands during the 1880s is widely viewed as one of the greatest mistakes in federal Indian policy,” said Washburn, a citizen of Oklahoma’s Chickasaw Nation. Congress later adopted the so-called “termination” policy in 1953, designed to assimilate Native Americans into U.S. society. Over the next decade, some 2.5 million acres of land were removed from tribal control, and 12,000 Native Americans lost their tribal affiliation. Mullin and Swimmer said the coalition does not want to repeat past mistakes and will work to preserve tribal control of reservations. They said they also will aim to retain federal support to tribes, which amounts to nearly $20 billion a year, according to a Department of Interior report in 2013. Mullin said the finalized proposal could result in Congressional legislation as early as next year. Washburn said he doubted such a bill could pass, but Gabe Galanda, a Seattle-based lawyer specializing in Indian law, said it could be possible with Republican control of the White House and the U.S. House and Senate. Legal challenges to such a law could also face less favorable treatment from a U.S. Supreme Court with a conservative majority, he said. Trump will soon have the chance to nominate a Supreme Court justice to replace Antonin Scalia, a conservative member who died earlier this year. “With this alignment in the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court,” he said, “we should be concerned about erosion of self determination, if not a return to termination.”

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A stop-gap funding bill to avoid a federal government shutdown later this week failed to garner enough votes to move forward in the Senate on Tuesday, with Democrats and Republicans both opposing the measure. The must-pass continuing resolution, or CR, which would keep federal agencies operating from Saturday through Dec. 9, received only 45 of the 60 votes needed to limit debate and be considered for passage by the 100-seat Republican-controlled Senate. Forty Democrats and two independents opposed the CR because it lacked a $220 million aid package to address the drinking-water crisis in Flint, Michigan. It also drew opposition from 13 Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz, the former presidential candidate. Senate leaders said they would explore alternatives to avoid a shutdown. Without an extension, many federal agencies will run out of operating funds when the government fiscal year expires at midnight on Friday. The bill includes $1.1 billion to combat the Zika virus and $500 million for flood relief in Louisiana and other states. “This is a 10-week funding bill. Its contents command broad support. It contains zero controversial riders,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said before the vote. Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives vowed to oppose the resolution until Republicans agree to a Flint aid package that the Senate passed by a 95-3 margin this month as part of a separate water resources bill. Flint, a city with over 100,000 people, has had lead-tainted drinking water for more than two years. Democrats, who say it is unfair to aid flood-ravaged areas and not Flint, want Republicans to include Flint aid in the CR or a version of the water resources bill that the House will vote on this week. Republicans say they will consider Flint later. Both sides say the aid package is paid for. “There is no excuse - none - for not including this provision,” said Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat. McConnell told reporters he would consider the possibility of removing the flood-relief provision from the CR to win support from Democrats. “Let’s see him do it,” Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said when asked about McConnell’s remarks. Reasons for Republican opposition ranged from disapproval of Zika funding in the measure to frustration over the absence of provisions to boost the U.S. Export-Import Bank and block international oversight of the internet.

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BEIJING (Reuters) - China called on the United States to play its part in resolving trade frictions between the two countries, and said Beijing isn’t devaluing its currency to boost exports as tensions simmered ahead of President Xi Jinping’s first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump set the tone for what could be a tense meeting at his Mar-a-Lago retreat next week by tweeting on Thursday that the United States could no longer tolerate massive trade deficits and job losses. The leaders of the world’s two largest economies are scheduled to meet next Thursday and Friday for the first time since Trump assumed office on Jan. 20. In Thursday’s tweet, Trump said the highly anticipated meeting, which is also expected to cover differences over North Korea and China’s strategic ambitions in the South China Sea, “will be a very difficult one.” Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang acknowledged there was a trade imbalance, but said this was mostly due to differences in their two economic structures and noted that China had a trade deficit in services. “China does not deliberately seek a trade surplus. We also have no intention of carrying out competitive currency devaluation to stimulate exports. This is not our policy,” Zheng told a briefing about the Xi-Trump meeting. The yuan fell 6.5 percent last year in its biggest annual loss against the dollar since 1994, knocked by pressure from sluggish economic growth and a broadly strong U.S. currency. China’s last one-off currency devaluation, a 2 percent move in August 2015, shocked global markets and was widely viewed by traders and economists as a failure. Trump has frequently accused China of keeping its currency artificially low against the dollar to make Chinese exports cheaper, and “stealing” American manufacturing jobs. While he resisted acting on a campaign promise to declare China a currency manipulator on his first day in office, tensions have persisted over how the Trump administration’s China policy would evolve. Zheng said domestic consumption in China will increase as it pursues economic reforms, helping to raise demand for foreign goods and services, including those from the United States. “This also helps ameliorate the trade imbalance between China and the United States,” he said. Chinese investment in the U.S. is also rising, creating more employment opportunities, Zheng said, adding that Beijing is willing to work with Washington to promote more balanced trade between the two countries. He said the trade imbalance can be resolved by improved cooperation, and urged Washington to lift restrictions on civilian technology exports to China and create better conditions for Chinese investment in the United States. Referring to protracted negotiations on a U.S.-China Bilateral Investment Treaty given disagreements about access to sectors the sides deem sensitive, Zheng said China remained committed to seeking solutions through dialog. Nonetheless, the United States had to do play its part too, he said. “China can expand imports from the United States. The United States should take steps to promote exports to China,” Zheng said. “As long as both sides broaden their thinking, take positive moves, both countries can do a lot in the trade and business sphere, and can achieve mutually beneficial, win-win results.”

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DAYTON, Ohio (Reuters) - Secret Service officers rushed on stage to protect U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump during a disturbance at a rally on Saturday, a day after rowdy protests shut down his event in Chicago. Trump briefly ducked at the podium and four Secret Service members scrambled to surround him after a man charged the stage at Dayton International Airport in Ohio. Officers then grabbed the man, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, before he was able to reach the stage and hauled him away. “I was ready. I don’t know if I would have done well but I would have been out there fighting, folks,” Trump told a rally later in the day. He said the man “was looking to do harm.” The incident further increased tension after Trump’s Chicago rally was scrapped amid chaotic scenes on Friday. Trump’s Republican rivals hurled scorn at the New York billionaire, saying he helped create the nervous atmosphere that is now sweeping the race for the White House with his fiery rhetoric. Trump blamed supporters of Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders for the incidents in Chicago, where scuffles broke out between protesters and backers of the real estate magnate. He called the U.S. senator from Vermont “our communist friend.” The scenes in Chicago followed a series of recent incidents of violence at Trump rallies, in which protesters and journalists have been punched, tackled and hustled out of venues, raising concerns about degrading security leading into the Nov. 8 election. “All of a sudden a planned attack just came out of nowhere,” Trump said in Dayton, describing the events in Chicago. He called the protest leaders there “professional people”. Sanders, a U.S. Senator from Vermont, hit back. “As is the case virtually every day, Donald Trump is showing the American people that he is a pathological liar. Obviously, while I appreciate that we had supporters at Trump’s rally in Chicago, our campaign did not organize the protests.” President Barack Obama told a fundraising event in Dallas that political leaders “should be trying to bring us together and not turning us against one another.” Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton drew criticism for releasing an initial statement that did not mention Trump by name and tied violent campaign events to a shooting in a South Carolina black church last year that left 9 people dead. While campaigning in St. Louis, Missouri, on Saturday, Clinton criticized Trump directly for “ugly, divisive rhetoric” that encourages aggression and violence. The months-long Republican race may be coming to a head at nominating contests on Tuesday where Trump is seeking victories that might give him an almost insurmountable lead for the nomination. Primaries in Florida and Ohio will be particularly important since they are winner-take-all states, where all Republican delegates are given to the winner of the popular vote instead of being awarded proportionally. It will be a make-or-break day for Republican candidates John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who both must win their home states to forge a credible path forward. Trump has drawn fervent support as well as criticism for his calls to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and to impose a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country. His rallies often attract small groups of protesters, but Friday’s was the first at which there may have been as many protesters as supporters. At an event in Kansas City on Saturday, Trump urged police to arrest people who disrupt his events. “They’ll have to explain to Mom and Dad why they have a police record and why they can’t get a job. And you know what? I’m going to start pressing charges against all these people and then we won’t have a problem,” he said to cheers. Outside the rally, police broke up confrontations between Trump supporters and protesters who shouted, “Shut it down!” Police on horseback and riot gear briefly moved into a crowd of protesters and officers used what appeared to be pepper spray against demonstrators for a few seconds. Rubio, who according to the New York Times slightly edged out Kasich on Saturday to win the Washington D.C. primary with 37 percent of the vote, bemoaned the state of the presidential race during an event in Florida, saying it had “become reality television.” “Last night in Chicago, we saw images that make America look like a Third World country,” Rubio said, reminding supporters the stakes on Tuesday are high. Kasich told journalists before a campaign event in Cincinnati, Ohio, that Trump had created a “toxic environment.” Republican candidate U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas called the Chicago incidents “sad.” Vanderbilt University political scientist John Geer said that the tension on display at Trump’s events are a proxy for what is going on in the electorate writ large. “People have strong reactions to Donald Trump,” Geer said. “They are playing out in the voting booth and they are also playing out at these events.” Geer said the Chicago cancellation would likely embolden Trump’s supporters - an idea floated by Trump in several television interviews. Clinton picked up four delegates in the Northern Mariana Islands’ Democratic primary on Saturday, to Sanders’ two. On the Republican side, Cruz won around two-thirds of the votes in Wyoming’s Republican nominating contest but because of the state’s unusual rules it is not clear how many Wyoming delegates will go his way at the Republican Convention in July. (Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Kevin Murphy in Kansas City, Idrees Ali and Amanda Becker in Washington.; Editing by Alistair Bell and Sandra Maler) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production.

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BERLIN (Reuters) - She has earned a reputation as Europe s chief crisis manager. Now Germany s Angela Merkel must forge a government out of an awkward group of allies bent on nailing down a coalition deal so tight it risks limiting her room to act if crisis strikes again. The chancellor goes into talks this week about forming a government. But her task, already tough after she lost ground in a Sept. 24 national election, is all the harder after defeat in a regional vote on Sunday further weakened her hand. The upshot is that she must draw on all her consensus-building skills to form a ruling alliance of her conservatives, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens. The terms of a coalition deal, should one be reached, could determine Merkel s room for maneuver on both the domestic and international stage. During her 12 years in power, she has been able to steer Europe through its euro zone and refugee crises, in part due to her dominance at home. Any constraints on her ability to swiftly shape and enact policies could compromise Germany s leadership role. If the three party groups fail to reach a deal at all, some in their ranks fear this could lead to public disenchantment and fuel further support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which entered parliament for the first time last month. The combination of the groups going into coalition talks is untested at national level and Merkel s would-be allies are not guaranteeing success. The chancellor s Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian allies meet the FDP and Greens separately on Wednesday before they all meet on Friday. Now we must gauge whether a platform for common policy can be found. For me, that is undecided, FDP leader Christian Lindner told Deutschlandfunk radio on Tuesday. Adding to the complications, the CDU, FDP, and Greens want to put any deal to their grassroots party members for approval. FDP deputy leader Wolfgang Kubicki has said it would be illusory to believe we could conclude negotiations by Christmas . One major area of contention is immigration policy. The CDU and their conservative Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU), have agreed a limit of 200,000 a year on the number of migrants Germany would accept on humanitarian grounds. But the other parties reject a cap and instead favor an immigration law with criteria to attract highly educated workers to plug skills shortages. They say the CDU/CSU migrants agreement should not be baked into a coalition deal. Juergen Trittin of the Greens said pressure on the conservative bloc to shift right - after bleeding support to the AfD - could complicate the talks on forming a Jamaica coalition, so-called because the parties colors correspond with the Jamaican flag. I fear this will make the Jamaica exploratory talks much more difficult, Trittin told the Passauer Neue Presse. The three party groups also have deep differences on issues ranging from European Union reform and tax to the environment. A Jamaica coalition was formed in the tiny western German state of Saarland in October 2009, but collapsed in January 2012. The same formation took power in the far northern region of Schleswig-Holstein after elections there in May this year. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the conservative state premier of Saarland who led the former Jamaica alliance there, stressed the need to establish trust between the three national groups. It is important that there is a basic understanding among those people negotiating, she added. Asked how to foster trust and understanding, she replied: Talk, talk, talk. But the size of the negotiating teams - the CDU/CSU and Greens have 28 and 14 people respectively - is undermining trust before the talks have even begun. Kubicki told Focus magazine it was a cardinal error to enter the discussions with such large teams, adding this was not conducive to building trust and no basis for good and confidential negotiations . The result of the mutual suspicion is that negotiators are pushing for deeper agreements in a coalition deal than in the 130 pages agreed by the outgoing grand coalition of Merkel s conservatives and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD). This risks limiting Merkel s freedom in policymaking. The euro zone and refugee crises, which were not foreseen in coalition agreements, were addressed with ad hoc decisions. Germany s budget surplus may help smooth the path in the coalition talks, however. It gives scope to satisfy all sides, to some degree, by paying for both tax cuts and investment in areas such as upgrading infrastructure for the digital age. But if Merkel is unable to form a three-way coalition with the FDP and Greens, she could try to team up again with the SPD - though the SPD has said it wants to go into opposition. Should the SPD reject her approach and Merkel find herself unable to form a government, she could try to form a minority government, or else call fresh elections - an unprecedented scenario. If we don t get this under control, the political system we ve had for 70 years - and the stability it has brought - will be threatened, said one senior conservative, speaking under condition of anonymity.

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NEW DELHI/BEIJING (Reuters) - India and China have agreed to an expeditious disengagement of troops in a disputed border area where their soldiers have been locked in a stand-off for more than two months, India s foreign ministry said on Monday. The decision comes ahead of a summit of the BRICS nations - a grouping that also includes Brazil, Russia and South Africa - in China beginning on Sunday, which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend. Indian and Chinese troops have been confronting each other at the Doklam plateau near the borders of India, its ally Bhutan, and China, in the most serious and prolonged standoff in decades along their disputed Himalayan border. The Indian ministry said the two sides had agreed to defuse the crisis following diplomatic talks. In recent weeks, India and China have maintained diplomatic communication in respect of the incident at Doklam, the ministry said in a statement. On this basis, expeditious disengagement of border personnel at the face-off site at Doklam has been agreed to and is on-going, it said in a statement. It did not offer more details of the terms of disengagement from the area which had raised fears of a wider conflict between the Asian giants who fought a brief border war in 1962. China said Indian troops had withdrawn from the remote area in the eastern Himalayas. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Chinese troops would continue to patrol the Doklam region. China will continue to exercise sovereignty rights to protect territorial sovereignty in accordance with the rules of the historical boundary, she said. The Chinese defense ministry said troops would remain on a state of alert. We remind the Indian side to learn the lesson from this incident, earnestly respect the historical boundary and the basic principles of international law, meet China half way and jointly protect the peace and tranquillity of the border region, spokesman Wu Qian said in a statement. The world is not peaceful, and peace needs to be safeguarded. The Chinese military has the confidence and the ability to protect the country s sovereignty, security and development interests, Wu added. The trouble started in June when India sent troops to stop China building a road in the Doklam area, which is remote, uninhabited territory claimed by both China and Bhutan. India said it sent its troops because Chinese military activity there was a threat to the security of its own northeast region. But China has said India had no role to play in the area and insisted it withdraw unilaterally or face the prospect of an escalation. Chinese state media had warned India of a fate worse than its crushing defeat in the war in 1962. Indian political commentator Shekhar Gupta said there was too much at stake for the two countries to fight over a small piece of territory. Hopefully, Doklam is a new chapter in India-China relations. Too much at stake for both big powers to let legacy real-estate issues linger, he said in a Twitter post. India and China have been unable to settle their 3,500-km (2,175-mile) frontier and large parts of territory are claimed by both sides. Lin Minwang, an India expert and the deputy director of the Center for South Asia Studies at China s Fudan University, said the detente would ensure a smooth BRICS meeting. Both sides should be happy. Modi is also happy. They can conduct a meeting smoothly and naturally. If there was still a stand-off, how could they meet?

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CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt s government has declared three days of mourning after attack on north Sinai mosque killed at least 85 people on Friday, state television said.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s pick to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, Jay Clayton, passed a key hurdle toward his confirmation after a government ethics watchdog gave him a clearance, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday. The U.S. Office of Government Ethics had examined Clayton’s financial disclosure forms for possible conflict of interest. After a clearance is issued, the paperwork is then typically reviewed by the White House and sent to the Senate. That sets the wheels in motion for the Senate Banking Committee to schedule a hearing. Clayton, a Wall Street lawyer whose specialties include mergers and acquisitions, must be confirmed by the full Senate. Many Republicans in recent years have criticized the SEC for focusing too much on enforcement, especially under former Chair Mary Jo White, and not enough on its other missions, including writing rules that promote capital formation. Clayton has laid out a capital formation agenda to Trump surrogates who interviewed him, a source familiar with the process said. He has also expressed interest in tackling some regulations involving accounting and compliance procedures that financial industry players say get in the way of deals and initial public offerings. The normally five-member SEC panel is currently down to just two commissioners, acting Chair Michael Piwowar, a Republican, and Kara Stein, a Democrat. If the two cannot agree on whether to advance a rule, then the measure fails.

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ATHENS (Reuters) - Three people drowned, at least six were missing and scores of others were rescued in three separate incidents of migrants trying to reach Greece across the Aegean Sea early Friday. Greek authorities recovered the body of a woman and searched for more people missing after a wooden boat carrying migrants sank off Kalymnos island, close to the Turkish coast. Fifteen people, 10 men, four women and a child, were rescued, and Greek coastguard vessels were searching for another six to eight people missing, a Greek coastguard official said. The Turkish coastguard said it recovered another two bodies on its side of the maritime border, and that the boat was carrying 27 people. Rescue operations in Turkish waters were ongoing, it said. The departure point of the boat and the nationality of those on board was not immediately clear. Separately, Greece rescued 127 migrants and refugees off Chios island on board two boats in distress earlier on Friday, the coastguard said. Arrivals of refugees and migrants to Greece, which shares a long sea border with Turkey, have increased in recent months, but not on the scale of mass arrivals in 2015. Nearly 148,100 refugees and migrants have crossed to Greece from Turkey this year - a fraction of the nearly 1 million arrivals in 2015 - but arrivals have increased in recent months. An average 214 people arrived daily in September, compared with 156 in August and 87 in July, Greece s migration minister, Yannis Mouzalas, said on Wednesday. About 60,000 refugees and migrants, mostly Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis, have been stranded in Greece after border closures in the Balkans halted the onward journey many planned to take to central and western Europe.

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ABUJA (Reuters) - More than half the schools in the state at the epicentre of Nigeria s conflict with Islamist militant group Boko Haram are still closed, the United Nations children agency said on Friday, as the insurgency drags into its ninth year. The lack of schools could continue to fuel Boko Haram or similar movements in the future as it means young people in the restive northeast region have few prospects, experts say. The conflict with Boko Haram, whose name roughly translates as Western education is forbidden in the Hausa language that is widely spoken in northern Nigeria, has killed more than 20,000 people since 2009. It has embroiled the region in one of the world s worst humanitarian crises, with at least 10.7 million people in need of assistance, according to the United Nations. In addition to devastating malnutrition, violence and an outbreak of cholera, the attacks on schools are in danger of creating a lost generation of children, threatening their and the countries future, Justin Forsyth, a deputy director for the United Nations Children s Fund (UNICEF), said in a statement. More than 57 percent of schools are shut in Borno state, where most of the conflict and resulting crisis have taken place, as the new academic year begins, the statement said. More than 2,295 teachers have been killed, at least 19,000 displaced and almost 1,400 schools destroyed, UNICEF said. Forsyth later said in an interview that three million children in the northeast required some form of education, adding that some attended rudimentary schools. He said Borno state government had returned about 750,000 children to school, but gave no details about the period of time over which they returned. On the issue of educating children who had been recruited to fight in the conflict, Forsyth said military and state government officials had agreed to the release of 600 children and mothers next week. This is also a process of rehabilitation because these children have been traumatised, he said. Despite aid agencies efforts to set up schools for children in the northeast, particularly those displaced by the insurgency, UNICEF said it has only received three-fifths of the total funding it needs for 2017. Combined with climate change taking its toll in recent years on farming, a mainstay of the region, the lack of schooling has left many without job opportunities.

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CLEVELAND (Reuters) - As Republicans spilled into Cleveland on Monday to nominate Donald Trump as their presidential candidate, 2012 nominee Mitt Romney had an equally crucial task: Entertaining his grandchildren at his lakeside summer house in New Hampshire. U.S. Senator John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 Republican nominee who has endorsed Trump despite the latter’s insults, attended an ice cream party with his wife, Cindy, and volunteers in his re-election campaign in Prescott, Arizona. He also took part in a veterans’ gathering. “Working out of my office in Miami this week,” former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who dropped out of the Republican presidential race in February, said in an email to Reuters. Bush had been the most active in attacking Trump on the campaign trail and has said he will not be voting for either Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton on Nov. 8. His brother, former President George W. Bush and father, former President George H.W. Bush, were also not at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. These are some of the big names from a long list of prominent Republicans who are not venturing this week to Cleveland, where Trump is to be formally nominated on Thursday after a rough-and-tumble Republican primary fight that ripped wounds in the party that have yet to heal. Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort told reporters the convention is a “healing time” for the party and that Republicans will leave Cleveland united, but he criticized Ohio Governor John Kasich for not participating in an event in his own backyard. And Republicans have moved past the Bush era, he added. “They’re part of the past. We’re dealing with the future,” he said. Kasich, a one-time rival of Trump’s for the nomination, is making the rounds in Cleveland without endorsing Trump or speaking at the convention, a snub that Manafort told NBC’s “Today” show is “embarrassing the state” of Ohio. Kasich adviser John Weaver shot back: “Governor Kasich has made it clear why he hasn’t endorsed Mr. Trump. They share a different world view in how to move the country forward.” Some of the party’s best diverse talent was missing from Cleveland or limiting their participation, including U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a Cuban-American, and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, an Indian-American. Many Republicans feel the party is in sore need of more Republicans like Rubio and Haley to appeal to a broader segment of the electorate. As Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus gaveled the convention to order, Rubio was in Fort Myers, Florida, talking about how to tackle toxic algae polluting some of the state’s waterways. Rubio, who lost to Trump in the primary battle and is running for re-election to the U.S. Senate, is to deliver a short videotaped message to the convention on Wednesday. Haley is to speak at a breakfast for the South Carolina delegation in Cleveland on Wednesday. “Chairman Reince Priebus asked if Governor Haley would speak at the convention a couple weeks ago. Governor Haley was grateful for the invitation and looks forward to attending the convention, but, as we have said before, she has no plans to speak so she declined the opportunity,” said her deputy chief of staff, Rob Godfrey. Romney, who has been a prominent voice among the anti-Trump forces, was in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, with 36 members of his family for their annual summer gathering, a spokeswoman said. Danny Diaz, who was campaign manager for Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign, said the convention is missing a chance to show off some of its most talented Republican politicians. “It speaks to where we are as a party at the moment more than anything else,” he said. Former Vice President Dick Cheney was in Wyoming helping the congressional campaign of his daughter, Liz Cheney, and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was talked about as a possible vice presidential running mate for Trump, was at home in Palo Alto, California. “Writing her book about democracy!” said her chief of staff, Georgia Godfrey. Some of Trump’s former rivals for the nomination are speaking in Cleveland, like U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, former Texas Governor Rick Perry, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. But some of the others felled by Trump were doing other things. U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, an eye doctor, was providing free eye care in Paducah, Kentucky. U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham was in his home state of South Carolina for the week. Republican strategist Ryan Williams said the no-shows are evidence of a party still deeply fractured, despite the calls for unity. “It shows that Trump has more work to do uniting the party and that he should continue to try to bring Republicans together even after the convention,” Williams said.

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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq s prime minister demanded on Thursday that Kurds declare their independence referendum void, rejecting the Kurdish autonomous region s offer to suspend its independence push to resolve a crisis through talks. We won t accept anything but its cancellation and the respect of the Constitution, Haider al-Abadi said in a statement during a visit to Tehran. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) proposed on Wednesday an immediate ceasefire, a suspension of the referendum result and starting an open dialogue with the federal government based on the Iraqi Constitution . The Kurds have been swiftly making concessions to Baghdad since last week, when Abadi sent his forces to seize all Kurdish-held territory outside of three autonomous provinces. A startlingly rapid advance by government troops transformed the balance of power in northern Iraq within a matter of days and has wrecked decades-old dreams of Kurdish independence that had come to a head last month with a referendum on secession. Baghdad has always considered the Kurdish secession referendum illegal. Abadi s visit to Iran on Thursday follows a trip to Turkey on Wednesday, a diplomatic offensive that has shored up support from Iraq s neighbors for his hard line. Turkey s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday the Kurdish offer to suspend the push for independence was a step in the right direction but did not go far enough. Abadi has ordered his army to recapture all disputed territory and has demanded central control of Iraq s border crossings with Turkey, including the oil export pipeline hub at Fish-Khabur, located just inside the Kurdish autonomous region. A media assistant to Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani said Kurdish security forces, known as Peshmerga, had repelled three attacks by Iraqi forces, two in the direction of Fish-Khabur, and one in Perde, on the road linking Kirkuk to the KRG capital Erbil, destroying several tanks and armored vehicles. Iraqi authorities did not confirm this account of fighting. Both contested areas have important oil assets. The fighting between the central government and the Kurds is particularly tricky for the United States which is a close ally of both sides, arming and training both the Kurds and the central government s army to fight Islamic State. Iraq is one of the only countries in the world that is closely allied to both the United States and Iran, and Tehran has used the Kurdish separatism bid as a way to drive a wedge between Washington and Baghdad. Iran s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Abadi in Tehran that he should not rely on the United States in the fight against Islamic State. Unity was the most important factor in your gains against terrorists and their supporters, Khamenei said, according to state TV. Don t trust America ... It will harm you in the future. Last week, Abadi spurned a call from U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to send home Iranian-backed paramilitary fighters. Abadi s office called paramilitaries patriots . The Kurdish crisis has broken out even as Iraq is about to finally defeat Islamic State, also known as ISIL, ISIS or Daesh, after a three-year war in which it received strong backing from a U.S.-led coalition, the Kurds and Iran. Iraqi forces launched an offensive on Thursday to recapture the last patch of Iraqi territory still in the hands of Islamic State, on the border area with Syria. Daesh members have to choose between death and surrender, Abadi said in a statement announcing the offensive on region of al-Qaim and Rawa. Islamic State s self-declared cross-border caliphate effectively collapsed in July, when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces captured Mosul, the group s de facto capital in Iraq, in a grueling battle which lasted nine months. The militant group still holds parts of the Syrian side of the border, but the area under its control has rapidly shrunk there too, with its de facto Syrian capital falling to a U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led force last week. Regular Iraqi army units, Sunni tribal forces and Iranian-backed Popular Mobilisation are taking part in the offensive toward the Syrian border, Iraq s Joint Operations Command said.

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LONDON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s review of post-crisis banking rules could sound the death knell for new global standards now being finalized and rip apart a common approach to regulating international lenders, bankers and regulators said. Central banks and watchdogs around the world have spent the past eight years drawing up regulation aimed at preventing a repeat of the 2007-2009 financial crisis, but there are fears that project could unravel after Trump said he wants the U.S. to row back on capital rules. Trump’s order for a regulatory review to overcome what he sees as obstacles to lending came as banking watchdogs were trying to complete the final piece of global capital requirements, known as Basel III. Given that the United States wants to shrink the banking rule book, there are doubts over whether the Basel rules can make it over the finishing line next month if they don’t have backing from the United States. Without support from the world’s biggest capital market, other countries would be less willing to commit too. The core aim of the outstanding part of Basel III that regulators are working on - dubbed Basel IV by critical banks who worry about more stringent capital requirements - is to impose more consistency into how banks calculate the amount of capital they hold against risky assets like loans. JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon said in the aftermath of the financial crisis that European rivals had been “a lot more aggressive” than American banks in calculating capital, meaning they were holding less. European policymakers have rejected that criticism, but their region’s banks have been lobbying against the remaining Basel rules, saying they would force them to increase significantly the amount of capital they need to hold. If the United States fails to approve the completion of Basel III, the perceived problem that European banks get away with holding less capital than U.S. lenders may not be properly tackled, a source involved in the negotiations said. “It’s in the interests of American banks to get this done,” the source said. Others are less optimistic that a deal can now be done after Trump’s intervention. “It’s going to delay completing Basel III, and perhaps lead to it not being concluded,” an adviser to banks said on condition of anonymity. “I do fear that Basel IV is doomed,” a banking industry official added. There are headwinds from elsewhere, too. Patrick McHenry, Republican vice chairman of the House financial services committee, fired a warning shot at Federal Reserve Governor Janet Yellen about the Basel talks in a letter dated Jan. 31, ahead of Trump’s executive order. The Fed must “cease” all attempts to negotiate binding standards “burdening American business” until the Trump Administration has had the opportunity to nominate officials that prioritize “America’s best interests”, McHenry said. While lawmakers often call on regulators to ease pressure on firms, regulators said Trump’s intervention in banking rules gives more clout to McHenry’s warning. The Basel Committee declined to comment. Trump’s decision to review existing, post-crisis banking rules has rung alarm bells among regulators outside the country. Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, which regulates the euro zone’s main lenders, said on Monday that easing banking rules could threaten financial stability. Draghi was chairman of the Group of 20 Economies’ (G20) regulatory task force, the Financial Stability Board, which during the financial crisis was instrumental in building up a global approach to reinforcing banking standards. A former regulator said the United States would be scoring an own goal by withdrawing from multilateral bodies like Basel as it would no longer be shaping rules that impinge on U.S. banking competitiveness globally. “It’s early days, but what we have seen in language and rhetoric from Washington is worrying,” said David Wright, a former top EU official who was part of crisis-era efforts to create the global regulatory consensus. “If you break international consensus, you are effectively opening up a regulatory race and heaven knows where it will end,” said Wright, now at Flint Global, which advises companies on regulatory matters. Wright was referring to what was seen in the run-up to the financial crisis, when countries like Britain resorted to a “light touch” approach to banks to make London a more attractive financial center. Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU’s financial services chief, said last week that international regulatory cooperation had been vital in tackling the financial crisis and must continue. Much will hinge on how much regulatory change Trump can actually push through. Former Democratic Congressman Barney Frank, who jointly sponsored the Dodd Frank Act that Trump wants to review, told the BBC last week he does not expect Congress to approve the wholesale rolling back of rules, but the Trump administration could pressure U.S. regulators to ease up on applying existing requirements. Anil Kashyap, a Bank of England policymaker, said last month that Trump’s nomination for the powerful role of Fed Vice Chair in charge of banking supervision would shape the U.S. approach to international rule-making. It will have a “huge impact”, a regulatory source added. The fear among global regulators is that multilateral bodies like the Basel Committee and the Financial Stability Board could be abandoned by the United States under Trump. Jose Ignacio Goirigolzarri, chairman of Spain’s Bankia, told Spanish television on Tuesday he would be concerned if Trump was questioning the usefulness of international banking rules. “It would worry me very much because I think it’s very important, very relevant that there have been advances in the homogenization of regulation amongst developed countries,” he said.  

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with President Donald Trump on Feb. 15 for talks covering a range of security issues, the White House said on Monday. “Our relationship with the only democracy in the Middle East is crucial to the security of both our nations, and the president looks forward to discussing continued strategic, technological, military and intelligence cooperation with the prime minister,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters as he announced the visit.

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BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany s foreign minister urged parliament on Tuesday to extend a military mission training Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq, saying to withdraw the German force would raise the risk of a new civil war there. Germany resumed its military mission last month after a brief suspension following a referendum for independence in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. The vote was rejected by Baghdad and triggered an Iraqi military offensive that recaptured disputed areas of the north from the Peshmerga. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who will step down soon as his Social Democratic party returns to opposition after heavy losses in the Sept. 24 election, was appealing to likely participants in the next government, particularly the Greens, not to oppose an extension of Berlin s military mission in Iraq. Germany has about 150 soldiers training Kurdish forces to fight Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. But the sharp rise in tensions between the Kurds and Iraq s central government has raised concern in Germany about the mission s future. Gabriel said, however, The more international groups are active there, the lower the chance of a new escalation. A withdrawal would be the wrong signal to the parties to the conflict, as if we were resigned to accepting the danger of a new civil war, he told reporters. He said the Berlin government had met with a variety of parties recently to urge a political solution to tensions between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Baghdad. We hope that the very fragile ceasefire holds and that a political solution can be achieved. A new civil war in Iraq would bring unbelievable suffering to this country, which has already suffered too much as a result of political conflicts in recent years. Iraqi Kurds voted overwhelmingly to break away from Iraq in the Sept. 25 referendum, defying the central government in Baghdad as well as neighboring Turkey and Iran who have their own Kurdish minorities. In retaliation, Iraqi government forces and the allied, Iran-backed Popular Mobilisation militia recaptured the oil city of Kirkuk and other disputed territories held by Peshmerga just outside official KRG boundaries. On Oct. 27 Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared a pause in the offensive, though it was unclear whether there was any official agreement on a ceasefire.The German cabinet has urged the Bundestag (lower house of parliament) to vote to extend the mission by three months to give the next government time to review all foreign missions. Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives are trying to form a new coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats and the environmentalist Greens after losing considerable support to the far right in the Sept. 24 election.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said it was “critical” that the U.S. House of Representatives pass a Republican-sponsored healthcare bill on Thursday to repeal a law enacted under the administration of former President Barack Obama. “With Obamacare on the verge of collapse, it is critical that the House passes the AHCA (healthcare bill) today and we continue to make progress toward repealing and replacing Obamacare,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told a news briefing. The House was expected to hold a vote on repealing Obamacare later on Thursday, with Republicans predicting victory on overturning the healthcare law even though their seven-year drive could founder in the U.S. Senate.

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - Green Party candidate Jill Stein late Saturday vowed to bring her fight for a recount of votes cast in Pennsylvania in the U.S. presidential election to federal court, after a state judge ordered her campaign to post a $1 million bond. “The Stein campaign will continue to fight for a statewide recount in Pennsylvania,” Jonathan Abady, lead counsel to Stein’s recount efforts, said in a statement. Saying it has become clear that “the state court system is so ill-equipped to address this problem,” the statement said “we must seek federal court intervention.” The Stein campaign said it will file for emergency relief in the Pennsylvania effort in federal court on Monday, “demanding a statewide recount on constitutional grounds.” The bond was set by the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania a day after representatives of President-elect Donald Trump requested a $10 million bond, according to court papers. The court gave the petitioners until 5 p.m. local time (2200 GMT) on Monday to post the bond, but said it could modify the amount if shown good cause. Instead, Stein’s campaign withdrew. “Petitioners are regular citizens of ordinary means. They cannot afford to post the $1,000,000 bond required by the court,” wrote attorney Lawrence Otter, informing the court of the decision to withdraw. Stein, who garnered about 1 percent of the presidential vote on Nov. 8, has also sought recounts in Michigan and Wisconsin. Trump won narrow victories over Democrat Hillary Clinton in all three states, part of the industrial heartland of the country until manufacturers started leaving for Mexico and other low-wage countries. Trump and his allies have attempted to stop the initiatives in the states, calling the recount effort a “scam.” Clinton’s campaign has said it would take part in the recounts. “The judge’s outrageous demand that voters pay such an exorbitant figure is a shameful, unacceptable barrier to democratic participation,” Stein said in a statement. “No voter in America should be forced to pay thousands of dollars to know if her or his vote was counted.” Stein said she planned to announce “the next step” in the recount effort on Monday at a previously scheduled news conference at Trump Tower in New York City. She said recounts already under way in some Pennsylvania counties would continue. The state’s election commission had approved recounts in 75 precincts where voters requested one, but refused to allow a full forensic audit of voting machines. Even if all the recounts were to take place, the overall election outcome would not likely change. The race is decided by the Electoral College, or a tally of wins from the state-by-state contests, rather than by the popular national vote. Trump surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed to win, with 306. Recounts would have to flip the result to Clinton in all three states to change the result. In the popular vote, Clinton had more than 2.5 million votes over Trump, the independent Cook Political Report said.

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BEIJING/SEOUL (Reuters) - China on Monday called for all sides in the North Korea missile crisis to show restraint and not add oil to the flames amid an exchange of increasingly bellicose rhetoric between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told the U.N. General Assembly on Saturday that targeting the U.S. mainland with its rockets was inevitable after Mr Evil President Trump called Pyongyang s leader a rocket man on a suicide mission. Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won t be around much longer! Trump said on Twitter late on Saturday. North Korea, which has pursued its missile and nuclear programmers in defiance of international condemnation, said it bitterly condemned the reckless remarks of the U.S. president, saying they were an intolerable insult to the Korean people and a declaration of war, the North s official news agency said on Monday. In an unprecedented direct statement on Friday, Kim described Trump as a mentally deranged U.S. dotard whom he would tame with fire. Kim said the North would consider the highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history against the United States and that Trump s comments had confirmed his nuclear programs was the correct path . Trump threatened in his maiden U.N. address on Tuesday to totally destroy the country of 26 million people if North Korea threatened the United States or its allies. Asked how concerned China was the war of words between Trump and North Korea could get out of control, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang described the situation as highly complex and sensitive. It was vitally important everyone strictly, fully and correctly implemented all North Korea related U.N. resolutions, Lu said, resolutions which call for both tighter sanctions and efforts to resume dialogue. All sides should not further irritate each other and add oil to the flames of the tense situation on the peninsula at present , Lu told a daily news briefing. We hope all sides do not continue doing things to irritate each other and should instead exercise restraint. Speaking to British Prime Minister Theresa May by telephone, Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated the North Korean issue should be resolved peacefully via talks, state media said. China hopes Britain can play a constructive role in easing the situation and pushing for a resumption in talks, Xi added. May, like some other U.S. allies, has pushed for China to do more on North Korea. Downing Street said the two leaders agreed there was a particular responsibility for China and Britain, as permanent Security Council members, to help find a diplomatic solution. They agreed the U.K. and China should continue working closely together to increase pressure on the North Korean regime to abandon its nuclear programs, a spokesman said. North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear bomb test on Sept. 3, prompting another round of U.N. sanctions. Pyongyang said on Friday it might test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean. While China has been angered by North Korea s repeated nuclear and missile tests, it has also called for the United States and its allies to help lessen tension by dialling back their military drills. U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers escorted by fighters flew in international airspace over waters east of North Korea on Saturday in a show of force the Pentagon said indicated the range of military options available to Trump. A continued rise in tensions on the peninsula, I believe, is not in the interests of any side, Lu said, responding to a question about the U.S. air force exercises. For its part, China says it is committed to enforcing sanctions against North Korea. Wang Jingdong, president of the world s largest lender Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) (601398.SS), told reporters during a briefing the bank will strictly implement U.N. Security Council decisions related to North Korea and carefully fulfill relevant international responsibility . The North accuses the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean war, of planning to invade and regularly threatens to destroy it and its Asian allies. The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea because the 1950-53 conflict ended with a truce, not a peace treaty. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday said his decision to call a snap election would not distract his government from responding to North Korean threats, pledging to increase pressure if Pyongyang failed to halt its missile and nuclear weapons development.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump spoke by phone on Thursday to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and British Prime Minister Theresa May to explain his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, a senior White House official said.

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PARIS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States must step up its support for a planned African force to fight Islamist militants in West Africa or it could fail, leaving French troops to carry the burden alone, France s defense minister said on Friday. France intervened in Mali to ward off an offensive by Islamist militants that began in 2012, and 4,000 of its troops remain in the region as part of Operation Barkhane where they work alongside 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers in Mali. France and West African countries are pushing for the creation of a regional force known as the G5 Sahel. Washington provides bilateral assistance, intelligence and training for regional security operations. But it is cool towards the African force and has pushed back against U.N. support for it. President Donald Trump s administration has also come under intense scrutiny over its existing operations in West Africa after an ambush in Niger in early October saw four U.S. soldiers killed by jihadists, in what experts say appears to have been an intelligence failure. In the Sahel, France is deploying in a high-intensity environment, with tremendous support from the United States. We are immensely grateful for that support, French Defence Minister Florence Parly said in a speech at a Washington think tank monitored in Paris. But much more needs to be done. We can t be, and don t want to be, the praetorian (guards) of sovereign African countries. They must be made able to defeat terror on their own, she said during a visit for meetings with her American counterpart James Mattis and White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. I would be happy if you could help spread the word in the Beltway, she said in a reference to the U.S. government. Still, discussion in Washington was focused more on what went wrong with the Niger operation. The deadly incident has become a political football in Washington amid criticism of Trump s handling of condolence messages to the families of the dead soldiers. The U.S. military is investigating the incident, and the FBI said it was assisting as it has done in the past when American citizens are killed overseas. Hours after Parly s visit to the Pentagon, Mattis visited Capitol Hill to meet Senator John McCain, who threatened to issue a subpoena to get information about the ambush in Niger after complaining about being kept in the dark. After their talks, Mattis acknowledged that we can always improve on communication, remarks echoed by McCain, the powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. We have had our problems and issues. But I m proud to work with him, and I m proud of the work that he is doing, McCain said. From initial accounts, the 40-member patrol, which included a dozen U.S. troops, came under attack by militants riding in a dozen vehicles and on about 20 motorcycles. Under heavy fire, U.S. troops called in French fighter jets for air support, but the firefight was at such close quarters that the planes could not engage and were instead left circling overhead. French aircraft evacuated the wounded, but the body of one of the dead soldiers was recovered by Nigerien soldiers only after two days. The U.S. military s Africa Command issued a statement on Friday explaining that the 800 U.S. military personnel in Niger were on a mission supporting African forces. The U.S. military does not have an active, direct combat mission in Niger, it said. LONG-TERM EXIT STRATEGY? Parly said the G5 Sahel force was meant to bolster the security capacity of Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Mauritania, which are all former French colonies. French officials see the success of the G5 Sahel as a long-term exit strategy for Paris. For decades, France has mounted military operations in its former African colonies but in recent years it has looked to spread the cost. Until now the G5 force has only received a quarter of its estimated 423 million euro budget, according to a report by the U.N. Secretary General, who said financing the operation would remain a significant challenge for several years. It will start its first operations soon. It needs support. The U.N. wants to give support. I hope everyone can become convinced that a robust U.N. assistance is necessary, Parly said. French defense officials say they expect the first G5 patrols to begin this month and hope that will provide momentum ahead of a donor conference in December.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump held his first-face-to-face meeting with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Thursday, and declared that they “get along great,” following an acrimonious phone call in January that strained ties between the two allies. “They said we had a rough phone call. We didn’t really have a rough phone call,” Trump said in dinner remarks. “It got a little bit testy. But that’s okay.” Dressed in tuxedos as they prepared to attend a dinner, the two leaders met on board the USS Intrepid, a World War Two aircraft carrier that is now a museum moored on Manhattan’s West Side. Joined by their wives, the two leaders later attended a gala to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea. Turnbull was one of the first foreign leaders Trump spoke to after taking office on Jan. 20. The Republican president became irritated that he was expected to honor an agreement made by his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, to accept as many as 1,250 refugees held in Australian processing centers on remote Pacific islands. Trump had broken off what was supposed to be an hour-long call after 25 minutes and later tweeted that the refugee agreement was a “dumb deal” and vowed to study it. The call aroused criticism and raised questions about his diplomatic skills. Vice President Mike Pence visited Australia in April and made clear that while Trump was not happy about the refugee agreement, the United States would honor it out of respect for Australia. Under the agreement, Australia is to resettle refugees from three Central American countries. Thursday’s get-together with Turnbull was delayed because of Trump’s hastily arranged White House celebration with Republicans from the U.S. House of Representatives after they narrowly passed a healthcare bill that would repeal and replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. The measure has yet to come before the Senate/ Trump and Turnbull were all smiles as they answered questions about the January phone call and the refugee deal during a picture-taking session. “We get along great. We have a fantastic relationship, I love Australia, I always have,” Trump said. Turnbull added: “We can put the refugee deal behind you and move on.” Trump said the refugee deal had been “worked out for a long time” and that reporters had exaggerated the phone call. “We had a great call,” he said, adding, “I mean, we’re not babies.” “Young at heart,” added Turnbull. Trump vowed to visit Australia as president, calling it “one of the great, great places” and noted he had many friends there. One such friend, pro golfer Greg Norman, was among the attendees at the Intrepid dinner. In dinner remarks after their meeting, Turnbull celebrated the unity of spirit that brought the two countries together against Japan in World War Two, and said Australia and the United States are united against North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and are fighting together in Afghanistan. “Today and together, we condemn and we resist North Korea’s provocation,” he said. It was Trump’s first trip back to New York, his home and where he made his name and fortune, since the former real estate executive moved into the White House in January. His motorcade passed hundreds of protesters as it arrived at the Intrepid in the early evening. Trump did not plan to visit Trump Tower, his home in midtown Manhattan where his wife, first lady Melania Trump, and their young son Barron still live, but instead was to spend the weekend at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ash Carter, who until January was U.S. defense secretary, said on Tuesday he did not see major changes in the campaign against Islamic State since President Donald Trump took office, amid accusations the U.S. military may be relaxing rules protecting civilians. “I don’t see overall major changes and I certainly hope they stay on the path that we set because I think that’s the right path,” Carter said at a forum at Harvard University, in his first public address since leaving the post. Carter declined to speculate about the investigation into an explosion in Mosul believed to have killed scores of civilians, even as he stressed the importance of probes of such incidents. The U.S. military has acknowledged a possible role in the incident but also says Islamic State could be to blame.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate passed the first broad energy bill in nine years on Wednesday, legislation containing modest measures popular with both Republicans and Democrats to modernize the power grid and speed the permitting process for liquefied natural gas exports. The bill, which passed 85-12, attempts to protect the power grid from extreme weather events such as ice storms and hurricanes, and from cyber attacks. It also aims to spur innovations in storage of power from wind and solar energy. The House of Representatives passed a similar bill last year. The Energy Policy and Modernization Act would increase U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), eventually helping to give European consumers alternatives to relying mainly on Russia for gas. After disagreements held the bill up for months, senators last week dropped measures from the bill to aid Flint, Michigan overcome a drinking water crisis, in which children have been exposed to dangerous levels of lead, and on offshore drilling. Lawmakers from both the House and Senate will next iron out differences over the bill. The Senate bill, for instance, requires the Department of Energy to issue a decision on LNG projects within 45 days of an environmental assessment, while the House bill directs the DOE to make the decision on permits after 30 days. Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington state who co-sponsored the bill, said shortly before it passed that she hoped the chambers would move quickly “so that we can realize the opportunity to help our businesses and consumers plan for the energy future.” The White House has signaled that President Barack Obama would sign the Senate bill. Energy policy analyst Kevin Book of ClearView Energy Partners said the chances the bill would be signed into law this year were about 65 percent, because the White House has had some differences with the House bill. Charlie Riedl, the head of industry group the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, said the vote was a “big step forward” and that certainty about the regulatory process is “crucial” for projects that cost billions of dollars to build. Rob Cowin, director of government affairs at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit group, said the bill falls “far short” of what is needed to promote wind and solar power, but is “better than doing nothing.” The Senate on Tuesday passed several amendments to the bill, including restricting most sales from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve when oil prices are low.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Friday will announce a plan to tighten rules on Americans traveling to Cuba and significantly restrict U.S. companies from doing business with Cuban enterprises controlled by the military, senior White House officials said on Thursday. Trump will lay out his new Cuba policy in a speech in Miami that will roll back parts of former President Barack Obama’s opening to the communist-ruled island after a 2014 diplomatic breakthrough between the two former Cold War foes. Taking a tougher approach against Havana after promising to do so during the presidential campaign, Trump will outline stricter enforcement of an existing ban on Americans going to Cuba as tourists and will seek to prevent U.S. dollars from being used to fund what the new U.S. administration sees as a repressive military-dominated government. The new policy will ban most U.S. business deals with the Armed Forces Business Enterprises Group (GAESA), a sprawling conglomerate involved in all sectors of the economy, but make exceptions related to air and sea travel, the officials said. This will essentially shield U.S. airlines and cruise lines now serving the island. But even as he curbs Obama’s détente with Cuba, Trump will stop short of closing embassies or breaking off diplomatic relations restored in 2015 after more than five decades of hostility, U.S. officials said. He will also leave in place some other tangible measures implemented by his Democratic predecessor, including the resumption of direct U.S.-Cuba commercial flights, though Trump’s more restrictive policy seems certain to dampen new economic ties overall. And, according to one White House official, the administration does not intend to “disrupt” existing business deals such as one struck under Obama by Starwood Hotels, which is owned by Marriott International Inc, to manage a historic Havana hotel. There are also no plans to reinstate the limits that Obama lifted on the amount of the island’s coveted rum and cigars that American can bring home for personal use, one White House official said. As a result, the changes – though far-reaching – appear to be less sweeping than many pro-engagement advocates had feared. Trump will justify his partial reversal of Obama’s measures to a large extent on human rights grounds. His aides contend that Obama’s easing of U.S. restrictions has done nothing to advance political freedoms in Cuba, while benefiting the Cuban government financially. Saying that the aim was to repair what Trump has called a “bad deal” struck by Obama with Havana, one U.S. official said the new administration would leave the door open to improved relations if Cuba undertakes democratic reforms such as allowing free and fair elections and the release of political prisoners. International human rights groups say, however, that reinstating a U.S. policy of isolating the island could make the situation worse by empowering Cuban hardliners. The Cuban government has made clear it will not be pressured into political reforms in exchange for diplomatic engagement. At home, Trump’s critics have questioned why his administration is now singling out Cuba for its human rights record while insisting that in other parts of the world it will not lecture other countries on the issue. Trump will issue a presidential memorandum when he delivers his speech at the Manuel Artime Theater in Miami’s Little Havana district, the heart of America’s Cuban-American and Cuban exile community. The venue is named after a leader of the failed U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 against Fidel Castro’s revolutionary government. Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who was played a key role in pushing for Trump’s changes, was expected to attend along with U.S. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart and other Cuban-American lawmakers. Under Trump’s order, the Treasury and Commerce Departments will be given 30 days to begin writing new regulations and they will not take effect until they are complete. Under the revised travel policy, U.S. officials say there will be tighter enforcement to make sure Americans legally fit the 12 authorized categories they claim to be traveling under, which could spook many visitors, wary of receiving a hefty fine. While tourism to Cuba is banned by U.S. law, the Obama administration had been allowing people to travel to Cuba as part of “people to people” educational trips for visitors, a classification that a White House official said was “ripe for abuse” by those looking for beach vacations. Trump’s new policy will eliminate such visits by individuals while still allowing them to be done as group tours, and also retaining individual travel under other authorized categories such as religious, artistic and journalistic activities, the official said. But Trump’s planned rollback of Obama’s policy has drawn opposition from American businesses and the travel industry, which have begun making inroads on the island, as well as many lawmakers, including some of Trump’s fellow Republicans. The new policy has come together after contentious meetings within the administration. Some aides have argued that Trump, a former real estate magnate who won the presidency promising to unleash U.S. business and create jobs, would have a hard time defending any moves that close off the Cuban market. But other advisers have contended that it is important to make good on a promise to Cuban-Americans whose support they considered significant in winning Florida in the 2016 election. Miami is home to the largest Cuban-American community.

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APOPKA, Fla. (Reuters) - With Hurricane Irma barreling down on Central Florida, Apopka resident Carmen Nova had a decision to make. A Mexican immigrant living in the country illegally, she knew her mobile home was at risk in the storm. But the 30-year-old mother of three also knew that seeking protection could pose its own hazards. In a time of increasing public sentiment against illegal immigration, undocumented immigrants like Nova are nervous about reporting to authorities, even if it is to take refuge from a hurricane. There s an internal storm, there s an external storm, and there s a political storm, and they re all targeting this community, said Sister Ann Kendrick, a Roman Catholic nun, community organizer and immigrant rights advocate. They re getting hammered, said Kendrick, who has worked hard in advance of the hurricane to convince undocumented immigrants that it is safer to take shelter than to remain in less-than-sturdy homes. Like other counties in Florida, Apopka s Orange County issued an evacuation order for people living in mobile homes, which are also known as manufactured homes and are a popular housing choice for immigrants. Fears among immigrants in the area were heightened in recent days after the sheriff in neighboring Polk County pledged to check criminal records of people seeking shelter. Although the statement did not mention immigration status and officials later clarified that undocumented immigrants would not be targeted, the warning nevertheless reverberated in migrant communities. In Apopka, a town of about 50,000 people outside Orlando, Kendrick had plenty of work to do in advance of the storm. The area s undocumented immigrants historically came to the area to work on farms but in more recent years have shifted to construction, landscaping and housekeeping. Tirso Moreno, leader of the Apopka-based Farmworker Association of Florida, said the Polk County warning had an impact in Orange County. It scared people, said Moreno, who also spread the word with immigrants that they must take shelter. Moreno said he was not convinced that all the undocumented workers he spoke with would take his advice, saying some were likely to wait out the storm in their mobile homes. The big problem is that many of them don t have enough information, although it s better than it used to be now that we have more Spanish-language media, Moreno said. Kendrick said she fielded calls throughout the day on Friday from undocumented immigrants who wondered if it was safe to report to shelters. About 50 people, including several undocumented families, were waiting in line outside a shelter at Apopka High School when it opened at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Kendrick said. They trust the schools, and they trust us, so if we tell them it s safe, they re coming, Kendrick said. Nova, who cleans houses for a $15 an hour while her husband works as a landscaper for $12 an hour, was among those who decided to seek shelter, saying she would put her fate in God s hands. If they ask for papers, I don t have them, Nova said from her mobile home with boarded up windows as she prepared her family to move to the shelter. The authorities will have to do what they have to do. I am not going to live in fear.

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Federal appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch, the U.S. Supreme Court pick of President Donald Trump, is a conservative intellectual known for backing religious rights and seen as very much in the mold of Antonin Scalia, the justice he was chosen to replace. Gorsuch, who has not shied away from needling liberals on occasion, is 49 and could influence the high court for decades to come in the lifetime post, if confirmed by the Republican-led Senate. He is the youngest Supreme Court nominee since Republican President George H.W. Bush in 1991 picked Clarence Thomas, who was 43 at the time. DON’T MISS For hardline West Bank settlers, Jared Kushner's their man He currently serves as a judge on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, the city where he was born. He was appointed to that post in 2006 by Republican President George W. Bush. Gorsuch, who is white, adds little diversity to the court compared with the justices appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, both of whom were women, one becoming the first Latina justice. But he offers geographical diversity to a court dominated by justices from the east and west coasts. As an Episcopalian, he would be the only Protestant on the court, which has three Jewish justices and five Catholics. EXCLUSIVE Poll: A third of Americans think travel ban will make them safer Gorsuch is seen by analysts as a jurist similar to Scalia, who died on Feb. 13, 2016. Scalia, praised by Gorsuch as “a lion of the law,” was known not only for his hard-line conservatism but for interpreting the U.S. Constitution based on what he considered its original meaning, and laws as written by legislators. Like Scalia, Gorsuch is known for sharp writing skills. “It is the role of judges to apply, not alter, the work of the people’s representatives,” Gorsuch said on Tuesday at the White House event announcing the nomination in remarks that echoed Scalia’s views. Trump, a Republican, had the chance to nominate Gorsuch because the Republican-led U.S. Senate last year refused to consider Obama’s nominee, appeals court judge Merrick Garland. Democrats, angered by the treatment of Garland, and opposing Gorsuch’s conservative views, may seek to block his nomination. Trump may have favored Gorsuch for the job in hopes of a smoother confirmation process than for other potential candidates such as appeals court judge William Pryor, who has called the 1973 Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion “the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history.” The federal government is familiar territory for Gorsuch, who is the son of Anne Burford, the first woman to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She served as Republican President Ronald Reagan’s top environmental official but resigned in 1983, just 22 months into the job, amid a fight with Congress over documents on the EPA’s use of a fund created to clean up toxic waste dumps nationwide. She was criticized by environmentalists for cutting the agency’s enforcement efforts against polluters and slowing payments for cleaning up toxic waste. The high court is also familiar ground for Gorsuch, who served as a clerk for two justices including a current member of the court, Anthony Kennedy, a conservative who often casts a deciding vote in close decisions. If confirmed, he would become the first clerk to join a former boss on the Supreme Court. Gorsuch also served as a clerk for Justice Byron White, a John F. Kennedy appointee, who retired from the court in 1993. Gorsuch has strong, Ivy League academic qualifications: attending Columbia University and, like several of the other justices on the court, Harvard Law School, graduating the same year as Obama. He completed a doctorate in legal philosophy at Oxford University, spent several years in private practice and worked in George W. Bush’s Justice Department. In a 2005 article in the conservative National Review magazine, Gorsuch criticized American liberals’ “overweening addiction to the courtroom” to implement a social agenda “on everything from gay marriage to assisted suicide.” In his Senate confirmation hearing for his appellate court judgeship, he said the point of the article could be applied to groups across the political spectrum. In 2013, Gorsuch played a role in a high-profile ruling involving arts-and-crafts retailer Hobby Lobby, allowing owners of private companies to object on religious grounds to an Obamacare provision requiring employers to provide health insurance covering birth control for women. The decision, later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, said the provision violated a federal law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In a concurrence, Gorsuch expressed sympathy for the choice faced by the evangelical Christian owners of the company “between exercising their faith or saving their business.” Gorsuch also criticized an important legal doctrine that directs courts to defer to federal agencies’ interpretation of statutes. Last August, in a case over immigration rules, Gorsuch called the doctrine the “elephant in the room” that concentrates federal power “in a way that seems more than a little difficult to square with the Constitution.” He has written extensively on the topic of assisted suicide and euthanasia, arguing against legalization. In written questions related to his Senate confirmation hearings, he was asked whether his writings would make him biased in any case on the matter before him. He said his personal views would play no role in his decisions as a judge. Gorsuch is married with two teenage daughters, and lives outside of Boulder, Colorado. Friends and former clerks said he was a lover of the outdoors, describing him as an excellent skier, a fly fisherman and a runner. “We used to joke that he should be the face of Colorado tourism,” former Gorsuch clerk Jane Nitze said.

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KUWAIT (Reuters) - Qatar s Emir said on Tuesday he hoped a summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Kuwait would help maintain stability in the region, Al-Jazeera TV said, though three Arab heads of state involved in a rift with Qatar stayed away. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain sent ministers or deputy prime ministers to the annual event. The countries and non-GCC member Egypt have imposed economic, diplomatic and trade sanctions on Qatar in a dispute that began in June. Qatar s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani said the summit took place in highly sensitive circumstances . He and Kuwait s Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber al-Sabah were the only heads of state to attend the meeting. I am full of hope that the summit will lead to results that will maintain the security of the Gulf and its stability, Tamim said, according to the Doha-based Al-Jazeera. Sheikh Sabah said in a speech at the end of the summit: We proved once again the resilience of our Gulf institution and its ability to be steadfast, simply by holding into the mechanism of convening these meetings. In his opening speech, the Kuwaiti ruler called for a mechanism to be set up in the Western-backed grouping to resolve disputes among its members. Relations within the Gulf have soured since the four Arab states accused Qatar of supporting terrorism. Qatar denies the charges. Kuwait, which had spearheaded unsuccessful mediation efforts since the rift began, had hoped the summit would give leaders a chance to meet face-to-face, two Gulf diplomats said. Earlier, the UAE said it would set up a bilateral cooperation committee with Saudi Arabia, separate from the GCC, on political, economic and military issues. UAE president Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan said the new committee would be chaired by Abu Dhabi s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayan, Mohammed Bin Zayed, state news agency WAM reported. Saudi Arabia has not yet commented. The proposal coincides with an escalation in a conflict in Yemen that involves Saudi Arabia and UAE. Veteran former president Ali Abdullah Saleh was killed in a roadside attack on Monday after switching sides in the war and abandoning his Iran-aligned Houthi allies in favor of a Saudi-led coalition. The GCC was founded in 1980 as a bulwark against bigger neighbors Iran and Iraq.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House declined to comment on Tuesday on media reports that Israel was the source of sensitive information that President Donald Trump shared with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a White House meeting last week. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said he would not comment on the reports. He also declined to say whether the White House would share transcripts of Trump’s meeting with Lavrov with lawmakers who have asked for them.

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KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine s state security service SBU have detained a government official on suspicion of working in the interests of Russia, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said on Thursday. Together with the Security Service of Ukraine, an official in the government s secretariat was found to be working for a long time in the interests of the enemy state. He was detained, Groysman said on Facebook. Neither he nor the SBU named the position or name of the detained official, but lawmakers and local media said the suspect was called Stanislav Yezhov, a deputy head of the government s protocol service who had also worked as an interpreter for Groysman. Yezhov could not immediately be reached for comment. The SBU said in a statement that the official was recruited by Russian agents while he traveled abroad. It said the official had been collecting information about the activities of the government. Ukraine and Russia were once allies whose intelligence agencies often worked closely together, but relations deteriorated after Russia s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

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BERLIN (Reuters) - German police on Tuesday detained six Syrians suspected of planning an attack using weapons or explosives on behalf of the Islamic State militant group, prosecutors said. Police detained the suspects aged between 20 and 28 during raids in the cities of Kassel, Hanover, Essen and Leipzig, the general prosecutor s office in Frankfurt said in a statement. Some 500 police officers took part in the raids during which eight apartments were searched. Four of the suspects arrived in Germany in December 2014 and two arrived the following year. All six had applied for asylum. The prosecutor s office did not say if their asylum applications had been approved. Prosecutors said the six Syrians are suspected of being members of the foreign terrorist organization that calls itself Islamic State (IS) . They added: The accused are also suspected of having planned an attack against a public target in Germany using either weapons or explosives. It is the second time this month that Syrians have been arrested on suspicion of planning militant violence. Earlier this month a 19-year-old Syrian man was detained on suspicion of planning a bomb attack. The arrest comes one month before the first anniversary of an attack in Berlin by a failed Tunisian asylum seeker who killed 12 people by plowing a truck into a Christmas market. Concrete blocks have been installed around Christmas markets at several central squares in the capital this year before the festive season opens in a couple of weeks.

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BERLIN (Reuters) - The leading candidates of Germany s smaller parties locked horns over migration, security and foreign policy in a television debate on Monday. It came less than three weeks before the federal election in which the third-placed party could turn out to be the kingmaker. The clash followed a debate between centre-right Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Social Democrat (SPD) challenger Martin Schulz on Sunday in which hardly any differences emerged. This stirred speculation that a re-run of the current grand coalition between the conservative CDU/CSU bloc and the SPD is the most likely outcome of the Sept. 24 vote. Merkel and Schulz both have stressed they want to avoid such a scenario. But polls suggest that the next government would have a stable majority only with another grand coalition or with a tricky three-way coalition between the conservatives, the Greens and the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP). In the debate of the smaller parties, Cem Ozdemir from the Greens attacked Die Linke (Left) candidate Sahra Wagenknecht and AfD politician Alice Weidel for their euroceptic rhetoric. This anti-European populism is simply wrong no matter if it comes from far-left or far-right, Ozdemir said, adding that Germany was benefiting immensely from the European Union and that it was easy to always blame Brussels for national problems in member states. Weidel from the rightist anti-immigrant AfD blamed the European Central Bank s ultra-loose monetary policy for soaring rents and property prices in German cities and accused the ECB of violating European treaties with its bond-buying program. FDP candidate Christian Lindner tried to corner Ozdemir by accusing him of applying double standards in foreign policy and having an inconsistent approach toward Russia. Lindner raised eyebrows last month when he suggested that Germany might have to accept Russia s 2014 annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine as a permanent provisional arrangement . Merkel has condemned Russia s annexation of Crimea and its support for anti-government separatists in eastern Ukraine, leading Europe in maintaining economic sanctions against Moscow. Linder himself said Germany should not mix refugee and asylum policies with the need for a modern and well-directed immigration law to attract more highly educated workers from abroad to avert a shortage of skilled labor in Germany. Turning to the threat of Islamist attacks, Lindner said there was no need for tougher security laws, adding that last year s Christmas market attack in Berlin by a failed asylum seeker could probably have been averted if authorities had only implemented existing laws more strictly. AfD s Weidel called for tougher border controls to improve security and suggested there should be an upper limit of 10,000 refugees per year. The Bavarian CSU conservatives want an official cap of 200,000 refugees per year a proposal opposed by Merkel and the co-governing Social Democrats. The SPD is trailing Merkel s conservative CDU/CSU bloc by double digits in polls. The latest survey by Emnid showed on Sunday that the SPD gained one percentage point to 24 percent and Merkel s conservatives remained unchanged at 38 percent. The leftist Die Linke came in at 9 percent, making it the third-strongest political force. The Greens, FDP and AfD stood at 8 percent each. This means that six parties are expected to enter the Bundestag lower house of parliament, up from the current four. The fractured political landscape could make it hard to form another viable alliance than the current grand coalition.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A short-term fix to fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program into January will likely be part of a stop-gap government funding bill Congress is expected to approve this week, White House legislative affairs director Marc Short said on Wednesday. In an interview with MSNBC, Short also said a measure to protect immigrant youths known as “Dreamers” would probably not be considered until January.

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LONDON (Reuters) - London police said an item that had prompted a security alert in the financial district of the city on Tuesday morning was non-suspicious, after authorities had closed St Paul s underground station as a precaution.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will accept the results of the U.S. election if it is fair, his son Eric Trump said on Sunday. “My father will accept it 100 percent if it’s fair,” Eric Trump told ABC’s “This Week” program.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump paid $38 million in taxes on more than $150 million in income in 2005, the White House said on Tuesday, responding to an MSNBC report that the network had obtained two pages of the returns. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said she received the documents from journalist David Cay Johnston, who said on her show that he received them in the mail. The returns, which MSNBC posted on its website, showed Trump paid an effective federal tax rate of 25 percent in 2005 after writing off $100 million in losses. The White House said in a statement that Trump took into account “large scale depreciation for construction.” Trump has repeatedly refused to release his tax returns, drawing criticism throughout his campaign last year and speculation from his political rivals he was hiding something. A New York Times report in October said Trump, a New York real estate developer, declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns. The newspaper said the large tax deduction could have allowed him to avoid paying federal income taxes for up to 18 years. But the returns posted by MSNBC on Tuesday showed that he did pay taxes in 2005. The returns do not indicate whether he paid taxes in other years or how much he might have paid. The Washington Post reported last year that Trump paid no federal income taxes for at least two years in the late 1970s. The White House said in a statement on Tuesday that Trump, as head of the Trump Organization, had a responsibility “to pay no more tax than legally required.” Presidents and major candidates for the White House have routinely released their income tax returns. Trump says he has not released his tax returns because they are under audit by the Internal Revenue Service. Experts say an IRS audit does not bar someone from releasing the documents. During a September presidential debate, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton criticized Trump, a Republican, for paying no federal income taxes. “That makes me smart,” he responded. Trump has feuded with the media since his inauguration, often accusing it of promoting “fake news” intended to undermine his presidency. “The dishonest media can continue to make this part of their agenda, while the President will focus on his, which includes tax reform that will benefit all Americans,” the White House said on Tuesday.

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MADRID (Reuters) - Regional leader of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont will lose all powers and will stop receiving a salary once the Senate approves article 155 which imposes direct central government rule on the region, the Deputy Prime Minister said on Monday. A single representative may be temporarily instated by Madrid to govern the region after the Senate approves direct rule, Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said in a radio interview. The Senate is expected to approve the measures on Friday.

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California sued the U.S. Department of Justice on Monday over federal restrictions on some law enforcement grants to so-called sanctuary cities, continuing a legal counterattack by Democrats against President Donald Trump’s administration. The city of San Francisco also filed its own lawsuit against the Justice Department late last week, saying the federal government has improperly sought to force local jurisdictions to enforce national immigration law by imposing funding conditions. President Donald Trump issued a broad executive order in January targeting wide swaths of federal funding for cities that generally offer illegal immigrants safe harbor by declining to use municipal resources to enforce federal immigration laws. However, a San Francisco judge drastically limited the scope of that policy in a previous lawsuit filed by the city. The Justice Department then sought to impose conditions on a national grant for local law enforcement that mandates access to local jails for federal immigration officials, as well as 48 hours notice before releasing anyone wanted for immigration violations. California’s lawsuit opposing those conditions, as well as San Francisco’s case, is similar to a legal challenge filed last week by the city of Chicago. In a statement on Monday, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said the state, not the federal government, is best suited to determine how best to allocate its law enforcement resources. “When President Trump threatened to defund our local law enforcement’s ability to do its job and protect our people, he picked the wrong fight,” Becerra said. A Justice Department spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment. The Trump administration contends that local authorities endanger public safety when they decline to hand over for deportation illegal immigrants arrested for crimes. California receives about $28 million a year in federal law enforcement funding that would be subject to the new conditions, the state said in its lawsuit. San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera on Monday said San Francisco receives about $1.4 million in such funds. Immigration enforcement is the federal government’s job, he said. “We’re not stopping them,” Herrera said. “But our police and deputies are focused on fighting crime, not breaking up hard-working families.”

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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Under a plan announced on Wednesday by the mayor’s office, Chicago would create a new entity to issue bonds backed by city’s share of Illinois sales tax collections in an effort to reduce its borrowing costs. Mayor Rahm Emanuel unveiled the plan at the city’s annual investors conference, saying it will be “much more financially viable” for Chicago. A chronic structural budget deficit and a huge unfunded pension liability that totaled $35.76 billion at the end of 2016 have pushed the city’s general obligation (GO) credit ratings from the low end of investment grade to junk levels. As a result, investors have demanded higher interest rates for the city’s debt. Illinois’ fiscal 2018 Illinois budget, which was enacted last month, included a provision allowing home-rule local governments like Chicago to assign their state revenue to an entity for the purpose of issuing debt. Carole Brown, Chicago’s chief financial officer, said the state sales tax dollars would flow first through the new entity to meet debt service and other requirements before any of the revenue is released to the city’s general fund. The state law also creates a statutory lien that would shield the bonds from a bankruptcy filing, which Illinois local governments are currently not allowed to pursue. “It’s one of the reasons that we expect the market will view (the new debt) favorably, why it will get higher ratings and why we think the cost differential with our (GO bonds) will be so great,” Brown said. An ordinance creating the program will be introduced in the city council this fall, according to Brown. If passed, Chicago would initially refund some of its “more expensive” GO debt and outstanding sales tax revenue bonds, she said, noting that New York, Philadelphia and Washington have similarly structured debt programs. “From a credit standpoint, it’s a positive,” said Richard Ciccarone, who heads Merritt Research Services, which provides research and data related to municipal bonds. He added that from a public policy standpoint, the move could tie up revenue the city may need for operations. In a report last month, Fitch Ratings said debt issued under this new structure could attain a rating higher than the city’s current GO rating. Chicago’s $9.8 billion of outstanding GO bonds are rated BBB-plus by Standard & Poor’s, BBB-minus by Fitch and Ba1 by Moody’s Investors Service.

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BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iran s foreign minister on Monday defended its ballistic missile program and urged European countries not to be influenced by U.S. President Donald Trump s confrontational policy towards Tehran. In an op-ed article in the New York Times, Mohammad Javad Zarif also urged European powers to help preserve the landmark 2015 deal under which Iran curbed its disputed nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of a number of international sanctions. In October Trump struck a blow against the deal, approved by his predecessor Barack Obama, by refusing to certify that Iran is complying with the terms of the deal despite findings to the contrary by U.N. nuclear inspectors. Trump has also called Iran an economically depleted rogue state that exports violence. Europe should not pander to Washington s determination to shift focus to yet another unnecessary crisis - whether it be Iran s defensive missile program or our influence in the Middle East, Zarif wrote. His remarks seemed to be at least partly aimed at France which has been critical of the Islamic Republic s missile tests and regional policy, including involvement in Syria s war, in recent weeks. Last month French President Emmanuel Macron said he was very concerned by the missile program and called for talks about it, an appeal rejected by Iranian officials. Iran s missiles are for defensive purposes only, Zarif wrote in the op-ed. We have honed missiles as an effective means of deterrence. And our conscious decision to focus on precision rather than range has afforded us the capability to strike back with pinpoint accuracy, he wrote. Nuclear weapons do not need to be precise. Conventional warheads, however, do. While criticizing the missile program, European powers that were party to the nuclear deal - France, Britain and Germany - have reaffirmed their commitment to the nuclear deal and voiced concern at Trump calling it into question. Zarif also criticized rival Saudi Arabia s regional policy and military campaign in Yemen but also called for dialogue. As Iran and its partners labor to put out fires, the arsonists in our region grow more unhinged. They re oblivious to the necessity of inclusive engagement, Zarif wrote. (Refile with full name of minister, para 2, inserts dropped word labor in last para)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Anthony Scaramucci, a hedge fund founder who was a fundraiser in Donald Trump’s election campaign, will join the president-elect’s White House staff as an advisor and public liaison to government agencies and businesses, he said on Friday. Scaramucci, founder of Skybridge Capital hedge fund and a former employee at Goldman Sachs(GS.N), is a member of Trump’s transition team. He will work as a liaison in the White House for state and local governments and for both American and foreign businesses, Scaramucci told reporters in New York. “One of my other personal goals though is to get all of the American people to see President Trump the way I see him,” he added. Trump, a Republican, takes office on Jan. 20. Scaramucci played down media reports from Thursday that he would hold a position analogous to that currently held by Valerie Jarrett, who oversees the White House’s Offices of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs and is seen as one of President Barack Obama’s most powerful advisers. “That’s probably an overstatement,” Scaramucci said when asked about the comparison. “Valerie and I know each other quite well and I will be speaking to her later in the day. I don’t want to overstate the position.” Scaramucci did not discuss what would happen to Skybridge, which had $12 billion in assets under management or advisement as of Nov. 30, 2016, down from $12.9 billion as of Dec. 31, 2015, according to firm’s website. The firm was put up for auction as Scaramucci began considering a potential position in the White House, Reuters reported last month.

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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - France said on Tuesday it wanted the United Nations Security Council to consider imposing targeted sanctions on human traffickers operating in Libya after a video appearing to show African migrants sold as slaves sparked global outrage. Several members of the 15-member Security Council expressed their horror at the video during a meeting on Tuesday, requested by France, to discuss human trafficking in Libya. The footage broadcast earlier this month by CNN showed what it said was an auction of men to Libyan buyers as farmhands and sold for $400 each. French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre said the council should use sanctions to help stamp out trafficking in Libya. France will propose to assist the sanctions committee ... in identifying responsible individuals and entities for trafficking through Libyan territory, Delattre told the council. We count upon support of the members of the council to make headway to that end. Under a sanctions regime set up in 2011, the Security Council is able to impose a global asset freeze and travel ban on individuals and entities involved in or complicit in ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, the commission of serious human rights abuses against persons in Libya. France can propose names for targeted U.N. sanctions but needs to win consensus support within the Security Council s 15-member Libya sanctions committee. Some council members expressed support for the possibility of imposing targeted sanctions, while others backed the council first issuing a statement. Diplomats said France, Britain and Sweden were drafting a statement. We all have a responsibility to act. This is not the moment to pass the buck, said Sweden s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Carl Skau. Libya descended into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 led to the overthrow and killing of leader Muammar Gaddafi, with two competing governments backed by militias scrambling for control of the oil-producing country. Islamic State militants have also gained a foothold in the North African state. People smugglers operating with impunity in Libya have sent hundreds of thousands of migrants to Europe, mainly Italy, by sea since 2014. Thousands have died during the voyages. The Security Council last week adopted an Italian-drafted resolution urging tougher action to crack down on human trafficking and modern slavery worldwide.

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GRAND RAPIDS, Mich./KENT, Ohio (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called Democratic rival Hillary Clinton a threat to the country on Monday, saying that if she is elected a probe into her emails could shadow her entire term in office, as the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Clinton’s lead narrowing slightly. “The investigation will last for years. The trial will probably start,” Trump told a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “Nothing will get done. I can tell you, your jobs will continue to leave Michigan. Nothing’s going to get done.” The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Friday said it was investigating newly discovered emails that might relate to Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. Clinton on Monday again said she was confident that the FBI would not find anything problematic in her emails and would reach the same conclusion they did earlier this year. “It wasn’t even a close call,” she said at a rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, of the FBI investigation. But just eight days ahead of the election - a time when candidates typically feel that the hard work of the campaign is behind them - both Clinton and Trump have ratcheted up their attacks on the other’s character and fitness for office. Clinton, who had been riding high in opinion polls in recent weeks as Trump was hit by fallout from the release of a 2005 video in which he bragged in vulgar terms of groping women, now finds herself on the defensive. Trump is hoping to convince voters that electing Clinton would prompt “a constitutional crisis that we cannot afford,” as her emails would be subject to years of controversy, in the wake of the FBI’s announcement on Friday that it continues to investigate material possibly related to her emails. Clinton on Monday continued to level attacks against Trump’s ability to control nuclear weapons. “I am running against someone who says he doesn’t understand why we can’t use nuclear weapons,” she said in Cincinnati. “He wants more countries to have nuclear weapons. “I wonder if he even knows that a single nuclear warhead can kill millions of people,” she added. Little is publicly known yet about the emails being investigated, other than that they were found during an unrelated probe into the estranged husband of a top Clinton aide. FBI Director James Comey told members of Congress on Friday the agency was probing more emails that might relate to Clinton’s use of a private email server, but added, “We don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails.” Trump, who has repeatedly referred to Clinton as “corrupt Hillary,” on Monday said the email probe shows what a poor role model she is - seemingly trying to turn the tables on Clinton, who has assailed his character over disclosures of vulgar comments he made about groping women. “I want to tell you, she is a terrible example for my son and the children of this country,” he said in Warren, Michigan, mentioning his youngest son, Barron. “Hillary is the one who broke the law over and over and over again.” (For graphic on race to the White House, click tmsnrt.rs/298mTyD) Until the Friday revelation, Clinton had been coasting with a comfortable lead over Trump. Opinion polls now shows Clinton’s lead over Trump has narrowed slightly since early last week. It is not yet known if the email controversy will hurt her support. Millions of Americans have already cast their ballot in early voting. Clinton holds a 5 point lead over Trump in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, receiving 44 percent of likely voters compared to Trump at 39 percent. Despite the controversy about her email, Clinton continues to hold a large advantage in the Electoral College, the process that selects a president by awarding votes through individual state elections. Clinton holds leads in several key swing states, including Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, where Trump must erode a large lead to be victorious. The FBI spent a year investigating Clinton’s use of a private email server, instead of government systems, while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. Comey concluded in July that while Clinton and her staff had been “extremely careless” in handling classified information there were no grounds for any charges. Comey, roundly criticized by Republicans for his decision not to recommend charges against Clinton at the end of the FBI probe in July, has now drawn the ire of senior Democrats. U.S. Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, accused him of “a disturbing double standard for the treatment of sensitive information, with what appears to be a clear intent to aid one political party over another.” He said, without providing evidence, that the FBI was keeping “explosive information” under wraps about ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook called reports that the FBI would not discuss whether the Russian government was behind the hacking of Democratic email accounts because it was too close to the election “a blatant double standard.” In an August letter, Reid asked Comey to investigate whether Trump allies have worked with the Kremlin to influence the election, citing reports that a foreign-policy adviser had met with Putin allies on a July trip to Moscow and longtime Republican operative Roger Stone had been in touch with WikiLeaks. The White House steered clear on Monday of direct criticism of Comey, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama in 2013. Obama views the FBI head as a man of integrity and does not believe he is secretly trying to influence the outcome of the election, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A budget plan crucial to President Donald Trump’s hopes for large-scale tax cuts looked set for a close vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday after some Republicans vowed opposition in an effort to protect a popular tax break. The rebellious faction is resisting a proposal to eliminate a federal deduction for state and local income taxes, which would hit middle-class voters in high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and California. The idea is one of several that have been floated as Republicans craft a tax-cut plan. The budget blueprint, which has already been approved by the Senate, is central to their efforts to push tax legislation through Congress in the face of staunch opposition from Democrats. The proposal “is obviously an issue of concern to a group of members, and the shared goal is to work together to address the issue and move forward,” an aide to House Majority Whip Steve Scalise said on Wednesday. With the clock ticking toward a vote, the impasse had yet to be settled. Republican lawmakers had planned to meet in House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office at 9 p.m. to try to hammer out a resolution, but the meeting was postponed until after the budget vote, which was set for 10:30 a.m. (1430 GMT). Republican Representative Tom MacArthur of New Jersey told reporters it was possible there were enough votes to block the budget plan. “It’s got to be close,” he said. Scalise predicted victory. “We’re going to get it done,” he told Fox News Channel. Republicans have sketched out a tax package that independent analysts say would cut taxes for businesses and individuals by up to $6 trillion over the next decade, but detailed legislation is not expected to be unveiled until next week. If Congress approves a tax-cut plan, it would hand Trump his first major legislative win since he took office in January. “I am urging Republicans who have questions about SALT (the state and local tax deduction) to vote no tomorrow, and keep voting no until we get some compromise we can live with,” Republican Representative Peter King of New York told Reuters. An aide to Republican Representative Tom Reed of New York said there was discussion of a compromise that would call for a tax credit up to a certain income amount to replace the deduction, and that he would support it. Republican Representative Leonard Lance of New Jersey told Reuters he was not interested in a compromise at this time, and instead wanted the repeal provision taken off the table. “I will be voting no on the budget tomorrow,” he said.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The AFL-CIO, the largest U.S. federation of labor unions, will launch digital attack ads targeting Republican front-runner Donald Trump next week as part of a multi-pronged effort to derail the New York billionaire’s bid for the White House and dampen union workers’ enthusiasm for him.  Officials at the AFL-CIO, an umbrella group of 56 unions representing 12.5 million workers, told Reuters the ads will depict Trump as anti-union, and will appear on Facebook and Twitter. The officials said the anti-Trump advertising effort would likely expand over the coming months. At the same time, an AFL-CIO affiliate organization will ramp up a door-to-door campaign to undermine the candidate in Ohio and Pennsylvania, key battleground states in the Nov. 8 presidential election. “Donald Trump has tapped into the very real and understandable anger of working people. But while he says he’s with America’s working people, when you look close, it’s just hot air,” AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka told Reuters. “Donald Trump is nothing but a house of cards, and once we educate people, the house of cards comes crashing down,” he said. Union leaders are increasingly concerned about Trump’s appeal to labor, typically a stronghold of the Democratic Party, because of his promises to scrap free trade deals that have led to manufacturing job losses in the United States. The AFL-CIO is entering the political fray several months earlier than in past elections, given the “unique cycle” created by Trump’s candidacy, spokesman Josh Goldstein said. The initial ads will be modeled after a text message blast that began Thursday featuring an image of Trump with a statement he made supporting “right-to-work” laws, which weaken organized labor by limiting their ability to collect membership dues. Several states have passed such laws, and the U.S. Congress has considered a similar measure. “I like right to work. My position on right to work is 100 percent,” Trump said in a radio interview in South Carolina last month. The text campaign on which the ads will be modeled featured a quote from Trumka, hitting Trump on right-to-work, and characterizing him as racist: “Donald Trump’s bigoted comments are bad enough. Now, he supports right to work. Tell him right to work is wrong for working people.” Trump has been widely criticized for describing Mexican illegal immigrants as rapists and criminals, and for proposing a temporary ban on Muslims seeking to come to the United States. The AFL-CIO declined to say how much the initial digital ads would cost, but the federation spent nearly $9 million in the 2012 election cycle on outside spending in addition to money given directly to candidates, according to Open Secrets data.  The AFL-CIO typically waits to endorse a presidential candidate until there is a de facto Democratic nominee. But Trumka, a former coal miner and leader of that union, has made clear he believes Trump in particular would be a disastrous candidate for workers. In a speech last week he called him a “bigot” and “anti-American.” An official representing Trump’s campaign was not immediately available to comment, but Trump has said repeatedly that he has support within unions. National unions nearly always endorse Democratic presidential candidates but Trump has built his insurgent campaign in part on a mission that many unions share: scrapping international trade deals. There are some signs Trump’s message is resonating beyond the 20 to 30 percent of rank-and-file union members that vote Republican, attracting political independents and even some frustrated Democrats. At a recent picket outside a steel plant near Canton, Ohio, workers cited former President Bill Clinton’s support of the North American Free Trade Agreement more than 20 years ago as a reason why they may support Trump over Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in a general election. “For a lot of us, it’s ABC - Anybody But Clinton,” Mike Newbold told Reuters. Clinton has said she evaluates every trade deal to make sure it protects workers and that she opposes one being finalized by the Obama administration. Her campaign said they are confident her plan to help struggling manufacturing areas will earn her support from union members. AFL-CIO’s affiliate, Working America, has noticed Trump’s inroads with working-class Americans, and recently sent canvassers to talk to 1,689 likely voters with household incomes of $75,000 or less in Cleveland, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to learn more about Trump’s appeal. “Working-class voters are up for grabs this time in a really significant way. These folks need good information, and we’ll fill that gap,” said Karen Nussbaum, executive director of Working America.    According to Nussbaum, workers said they were frustrated with politics and worried about the economy. Of those who had already settled on a candidate, 38 percent chose Trump. But more than half were still undecided. She said the results of that initial canvas would be used to guide a massive door-to-door campaign to have more than half a million one-on-one conversations with Ohio voters during 2016, to help them “make decisions that actually solve their problems as opposed to phony solutions.” Working America is adding staff to its offices in Columbus and Cleveland to support the operation, and will open another soon in Cincinnati, she said. Labor strategist Steve Rosenthal said that in every presidential election there is a sense that white, working-class union men could desert the Democratic Party. “But I think when all is said and done, when unions put their programs into gear, in person and one-on-one in homes and in their communities, union members will vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic nominee,” Rosenthal said. “Trump might have some appeal right now, but once you start to peel away his record - his manufacturing in China, his relationships with unions - he’s a pretty good target.” (Additional reporting by Tim Reid in Ohio; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Alistair Bell) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production.

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PARIS (Reuters) - The Kremlin-funded Russian broadcaster RT was due to launch its French language news channel on Monday night amid heavy suspicion by the government and President Emmanuel Macron who has dubbed it an organ of propaganda . Macron has led official criticism of RT, formerly known as Russia Today , and openly accused it of sowing disinformation about him via its website and social media during the presidential election earlier this year which he won. RT has denied the allegations and RT France s chief executive Xenia Fedorova, speaking at the channel s new offices in a western Paris suburb, again brushed off criticism, saying that RT stood for news not covered by mainstream media . The channel was being cold-shouldered by Macron and the channel had still not been granted accreditation to cover news conferences inside the French presidential Elysee palace, Fedorova said on Monday a few hours before the channel was due to start broadcasting. There was just one example of when we actually managed to visit. That was actually during the Trump visit to Paris, she added, referring to the visit by the U.S. president last in July. A spokesman for the French government said last week that the current administration was concerned by encroachment on freedom of expression but highlighted that RT was owned by a foreign power. Fedorova brushed off the remarks, citing other well-known international news channels that receive public funding such as BBC World, France 24 or Al Jazeera. RT stands for news that are not covered by the mainstream media, she said. We will keep the platform (open) to perspectives and opinions that are either not covered or silenced. RT France has planned a budget of 20 million euros ($24 million) for its launch and aims to recruit a total of 150 people by the end next year. By comparison, BFM TV, France s number one news channel, started with 15 million euros and now has an annual budget of about 60 million euros. RT s first international channel was launched in December 2005. The network broadcasts in English, Arabic and Spanish and its programs are viewed by 70 million people in 38 countries, it says. The landscape for news channels is already crowded in France, with four round-the-clock local news channels. Unlike its rivals, RT will not reach all French households via the digital terrestrial television technology. Rather, it can be viewed only online or by subscribers of Iliad s broadband services. Bouygues Telecom is also due to distribute RT France from the end of next February. The two biggest French telecom operators, Orange and Altice s SFR Group, are still in discussions with RT France, the firms said, underscoring the low audience level that RT is likely to have in its first few days. Russia s international news outlets have come under the spotlight since 2016 after being accused of meddling in the U.S. presidential election. Russia has denied interfering in the election. In October, Twitter accused RT and Russian news agency Sputnik of interfering in the 2016 U.S. election and banned them from buying ads on its network. ($1 = 0.8472 euros)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump said he had a “constructive” meeting with members of U.S. intelligence agencies on Friday and plans to appoint a team to give him a plan to combat cyber attacks within 90 days of taking office on Jan. 20. “While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines,” Trump said in a statement after the briefing from spy chiefs who have accused Russia of hacking to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election. Russia denies the allegations.

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(Reuters) - Democrat Kevin de Leon, president of the California State Senate, announced on Sunday he would run for the U.S. Senate in 2018, challenging incumbent Senator Dianne Feinstein. The Los Angeles Democrat’s announcement did not mention Feinstein, 84. Feinstein, who was first elected to the Senate in 1992, is the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the first woman to hold that role. She is also a senior member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and was the first woman to lead that panel, from 2009 through 2015. Feinstein said last week that she would run for her fifth term. She is the oldest U.S. senator but among several octogenarians, including Republicans Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Richard Shelby, Jim Inhofe, Pat Roberts and John McCain.

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DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syria s government has produced much more power in recent months as the army recaptured natural gas fields from militants, the electricity ministry said on Tuesday. Bassam Darwish, head of the electricity ministry s planning unit, told Reuters that the amount of gas the petroleum ministry provided to fuel power plants has nearly doubled since last winter. There had been a very big problem with securing fuel and we went through a difficult winter... We have seen an improvement, Darwish said. After the liberation of any area, the workers of the energy sector directly go in and repair facilities. With the help of Russian air power and Iran-backed militias, the army has driven rebels from Syria s main urban centers in western Syria and marched eastwards against Islamic State. Syrian troops with their allies pushed into the oil-rich province of Deir al-Zor last month, after steady advances against Islamic State insurgents across the central and eastern desert. Several gas fields have fallen back under government control since last year. Electricity supply has been highly restricted and irregular across various parts of the country during the six-year war. Improving it would help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad restore economic growth in territory the government controls. Since early in Syria s multi-sided conflict, Damascus and the electricity ministry have worked with friendly states to help keep the power system running, Darwish said. Contracts were signed with Russia, with China, with Iran... that enabled us to continue working in the past, he said. Earlier this month, Iran signed deals with Damascus to repair and build power plants, a potentially lucrative move for Tehran that points to its deepening economic role. During the visit by Syria s electricity minister to Tehran, the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding that includes restoring a main control centre for the Syrian power grid. The deals also involve a contract to supply power to Aleppo city. Darwish said the meeting led to signing very important contracts with Iranian energy company MAPNA, with strong support from the Islamic Republic. Under the deals, Iran will make payment easy for the Syrian government, whose economy has been battered by war and Western sanctions, he said. The contracts...are based on payment facilities from the Iranian side, he added. We expect very big contracts to come out of the MoU that was signed... very large numbers, always with preferential terms for the Syrian side. Shunned by Western powers, Damascus has been looking to friendly states to play a major role in rebuilding the country. Iran will build an oil refinery in Syria after the war ends, the head of downstream technologies at Iran s Research Institute of the Petroleum Industry was quoted as saying on Tuesday. In January, Iran s government and entities close to its elite Revolutionary Guards signed major telecommunications and mining deals with Damascus. Since at least 2012, Iran has provided critical military support to the Damascus government, helping it regain swathes of the country. Iran experts say Tehran is now looking to reap a financial dividend. Before the war in Syria, power cuts and blackouts were almost non-existent, Darwish said. The government produced less than 20 billion kilowatt hour last year, down from 50 billion in 2011, he said. It was constantly declining because of the lack of fuel, in addition to destruction in the electric system and energy sector, including power plants and oil wells, he said. Darwish estimated that direct damages in the power sector throughout the war amounted to between $4 and 5 billion. Indirect losses resulting from the lack of electricity to various sectors, residential zones, and institutions, had reached nearly $60 billion, he said. This shows us...the scale of the efforts that will have to be very big to restore the electric system, which will also require very large investments, he said. This issue is related to the availability of funding, which is currently the main obstacle, he said. The government was doing all it could, but the size of the damages is big.

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(Reuters) - The U.S. Labor Department will implement its fiduciary rule on June 9 with no further delays, U.S. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta said on Tuesday. The department’s rule, which requires brokers offering retirement investment advice to act in the best interest of their customers, has been heavily criticized by Republicans and Wall Street amid concerns it may make investment advice too costly. The rule has faced a rocky time becoming effective, with President Trump last month delaying its enactment date, originally April 10, for 60 days. Trump has also ordered a review of the rule. Acosta, in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, which was also shared with Reuters, said there was “no principled legal basis to change the June 9 date while we seek public input”. Calling the fiduciary rule a “controversial regulation”, Acosta said while courts have upheld the rule as consistent with Congress’ delegated authority, it may not align with Trump’s “deregulatory goals”. He also said the department was seeking “public comment” on how to revise the rule, leaving open a possibility of repealing the rule in future. “These are signs of positive movement for advisers and active managers despite industry disappointment that Labor failed to kill the rule,” Cowen and Co analyst Jaret Seiberg said in a client note. Some Democratic Senators on Friday raised concerns over the possibility that the Trump administration will permanently shelve the fiduciary rule.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is considering Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, for secretary of state, NBC News reported on Thursday, citing unnamed sources. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, is due to meet Trump on Sunday to discuss the position, NBC News said.

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ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey s Vakifbank said on Friday it had never had any interest or involvement whatsoever in any of the processes mentioned in the U.S. trial of a Turkish bank executive accused of helping to launder money for Iran. VakifBank has always acted in compliance with laws and related legislations and shown utmost care and diligence to act in accordance with the laws and the related legislations, the bank said in a statement to the Istanbul stock exchange. Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab testified in the United States on Thursday that two Turkish authoriZed Vakifbank and another lender to move funds for Iran. Shares of VakifBank were down 1.6 percent in early trade in Istanbul.

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DUBAI (Reuters) - The Saudi-led coalition will allow four cranes into the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeidah to boost humanitarian aid deliveries into wartorn Yemen, the Saudi ambassador to Sanaa said on Wednesday. Saudi-led forces blocked the port for more than three weeks last month in response to Houthi missile attacks, adding to food shortages in Yemen. A coalition spokesman said on Wednesday the Houthis had fired 83 ballistic missiles towards the kingdom since the war started in 2015.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Republican front-runner Donald Trump on Thursday talked up “New York values” and urged his home state voters to give him a big win next week, but his rivals warned nominating Trump could lead to disastrous losses to the Democrats in the Nov. 8 election. The New York billionaire is in danger of being forced to try to capture the Republican presidential nomination through a contested convention because opposition from rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich is chipping away at his lead. As protesters chanted outside and waved signs against Trump, Trump told the New York state Republican Party’s gala that he needs the momentum that a victory in the state’s primary would bring next Tuesday. “New York is so important,” Trump said, trying to regain the momentum he lost after Cruz defeated him in Wisconsin last week and captured all of Colorado’s delegates. Trump identified himself with “New York values” of hard work and compassion after Cruz charged Trump’s version of these values are basically Democratic positions. Whether Trump can win the 1,237 delegates he needs for the nomination is an open question as both Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, and Ohio Governor Kasich, try to block him from getting enough delegates. They want to extend the fight to a contested convention in Cleveland when Republicans gather to formally choose their nominee in July. In his speech to the group, Kasich tried to raise questions about Trump without mentioning his name. He said Republican candidates across the country would be at risk with a candidate with a negative message at the top of the ballot. Trump has drawn many protests for policy positions that include building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, deporting 11 million illegal immigrants and banning Muslims temporarily from entering the United States. “We risk losing everything from the White House to the courthouse to the state house if we don’t advance a positive, uplifting, unifying message to this country. That is what we need to do,” said Kasich, who spoke after Trump. Cruz, speaking after Kasich, continued the theme, pointing to polls showing Trump losing badly to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and getting far less support from women and minority voters. Cruz presented himself as a unity candidate who can bring the various wings of the party together. “If we nominate a candidate who loses to Hillary Clinton by double digits, who loses to women by 20 points, who loses Hispanics by 40 points, who loses young people, we cannot win in the general (election),” said Cruz. Before the event started in the Grand Hyatt hotel near Grand Central Station, a group of protesters stormed the hotel mezzanine with a banner that read: “NYC Rejects the Party of Hate.” Eleven of them were reported arrested. Outside the hotel, many anti-Trump demonstrators called the New York billionaire businessman a fascist or white supremacist. They even teased him about his signature hairdo. “We Shall Over Comb,” read one sign. Others said: “Deport Trump,” “No allegiance for Trump,” and “Black lives matter.” A series of speakers addressed the protest crowd with a loudspeaker. Police set up portable barriers to keep protesters separated from traffic and allow pedestrians to pass on busy 42nd Street. “Although Trump is from here, there is no place for him here,” said one of the speakers, Nabil Hassein, 27, of the group Millions March NYC. Kasich scored a victory with the endorsement of former New York Governor George Pataki, an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for the Nov. 8 election.The Trump campaign got some good news when a Florida prosecutor announced that Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, would not be prosecuted on a misdemeanor battery charge involving a reporter he was accused of grabbing at an event last month.

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BERLIN/PARIS (Reuters) - French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire will meet German officials in Berlin this week to discuss the future of the euro zone and assess his own prospects of becoming the next chairman of the Eurogroup forum of finance ministers. French and German officials confirmed Le Maire would be in Berlin on Wednesday, when he will meet acting Finance Minister Peter Altmaier, a close ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Le Maire is also due to see Christian Lindner, leader of the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), and Cem Oezdemir, co-leader of the Greens party. Both are in discussions with Merkel s conservatives on forming a coalition government. France s Emmanuel Macron has made euro zone reform a central goal of his five-year presidency. But any changes will require the support of Merkel and her new government, which is not expected to be in place before Christmas. Lindner has been critical of Macron s idea to create a budget for the euro zone. We want to follow up on the president s Sorbonne speech and exchange views on the future of the euro zone, a French finance ministry official said, referring to a speech by Macron in September when he laid out his vision for EU reform. While Le Maire s visit - his first to Berlin since the German election - is about strengthening contacts with likely members of the new government, officials indicated that it would also be an opportunity to sound out Berlin on the Eurogroup presidency, a powerful position that will be elected next month. Since it was created in 2005, the Eurogroup, which brings together the euro zone s 19 finance ministers, has had only two presidents: Luxembourg s Jean-Claude Juncker, who served from 2005 to 2013, and former Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who is due to step down in January. The position involves chairing monthly meetings and driving policy around economic and monetary union, including ensuring that all member states stick to strict targets on deficits and debt. The post has been dubbed Mr Euro . Le Maire, 48, is regarded as sharp, ambitious and more than capable of leading the group. But some euro zone officials are wary about the presidency ending up in the hands of either Germany or France, the two largest economies in the single currency bloc and already dominant forces in policymaking. A further complication for Le Maire is France s poor record of meeting its own deficit targets over the past decade. German officials are not ruling out Le Maire, but they have also expressed a preference for giving the post to a smaller country. Last week, one official in Berlin mentioned two possible alternatives: Pierre Gramegna of Luxembourg and Peter Kazimir of Slovakia. The official also floated the idea of extending Dijsselbloem, seen as a close ally of Berlin, even though he is not part of the new Dutch government. It is still quite unclear who will come forward, the German official said when asked about the presidency. At this stage there does not seem to be one candidate everyone is rallying behind. There is no natural candidate. The Eurogroup president will be chosen on Dec. 4, an EU official said last week, with the formal call for candidates opening in mid-November. It is not a done thing, the German official said of Le Maire s candidacy. He will only apply if he gets the impression that he is the one. The talks in Berlin on Wednesday could be decisive in determining whether he does throw his hat into the ring. If Le Maire were to get the job, it could have repercussions for other top euro zone jobs. Mario Draghi will end his term as president of the European Central Bank on Oct. 31, 2019, and Germany s Jens Weidmann is already being mentioned as a potential successor. Euro zone watchers say that if the French secure the presidency of the Eurogroup, it may be harder for them to argue against a German candidate taking over the ECB. Still, as one senior French official told Reuters on condition of anonymity last month, Weidmann at the helm of the ECB would be a problem for a lot of countries, not just for France .

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